CROKE, THOMAS WILLIAM

Archbishop, Irish patriot; b. Castlecor, County Cork, Ireland, January 1823; d. Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, July 22, 1902. Croke was the son of William and Isabelle (Plummer) Croke; his mother was a Protestant who converted to Catholicism four years before her death. After studies at the Irish ecclesiastical colleges in Paris (1840–44) and Rome, Croke was ordained (1847). He then taught theology at Carlow and Paris (1847–49), did mission work in the Diocese of Cloyne (1849–58), served as the first president of St. Colman's College, Fermoy (1858–65), and as pastor at Doneraile (1865–70). At Vatican Council I he was theologian to Bishop Keane of Cloyne. In 1870 he was appointed bishop of Auckland, New Zealand. When he returned to Ireland in 1875 for a rest, he was promoted to the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. As bishop in Auckland and in Cashel, Croke initiated extensive building programs for churches, schools, and rectories. He enlarged St. Patrick's College in Thurles and completed the cathedral there. He supported the temperance movement and also the Gaelic League, formed in 1891 to revive the Irish language and culture. Croke's greatest prominence, however, was in Irish national affairs.

During the repeal agitation of the 1840s he was an enthusiastic follower of Daniel o'connell; later he turned to the Young Ireland party. Through the 1850s he associated himself closely with the Irish Tenant League. After his return to Ireland he was an outspoken advocate of home rule, and he backed the Land League and the leadership of Charles Parnell in Parliament. But his nationalism, intense and often imprudently expressed, roused the suspicion and hostility of successive British governments. A letter of his to the Freeman's Journal of Dublin, which attacked the use of Irish tax revenues to finance police repression and which seemed to encourage nonpayment of taxes, was denounced to Rome by English Catholics (1887). At this juncture Abp. William walsh of Dublin served as a moderating influence, and Croke's friendship with Cardinal Manning of Westminster kept him in good standing. The scandal that involved Parnell in a divorce suit (1891) disenchanted Croke with the Irish Parliamentary party. More and more he disagreed with its program until finally he withdrew from political controversy.

Bibliography: p. j. walsh, Life of William J. Walsh: Archbishop of Dublin (Dublin 1928).

[a. o'donnell]