Ireland

to his home at Seguin where he continued his law
practice and business pursuits for the remainder
of his life. He was twice married: in 1854, to
Mrs. Matilda (Wicks) Faircloth, who died in
1856; and in 1857, to Anna Maria Penn.

(Army), i ser., vols. IX, XV, XXVI (pts. i and 2),
XXXIV (pt 4), LIII; D. G. Wooten, Comprehensive
Hist, of Texas, vol. II (1898) ; Colls. Arch. <§• Hist.
Dept.f Texas State Lib., Exec. Ser.: Governors' Mes-
sages Coke to Ross (1917) J N. G. Kittrell, Governors
Who Have Been and Other Public Men of Texas
(1921); L. E. Daniell, Personnel of the Texas State
Government (1892) ; Galveston Daily News, Mar. 16,
1896.] B.F.L.

IRELAND, JOHN (Sept. 11, iSsS-Sept. 25,
1918), Roman Catholic prelate, born at Burn-
church, Kilkenny, Ireland, was the son of Rich-
ard, a carpenter, and Judith (Naughton) Ire-
land. In 1849, during the post-famine exodus,
Richard Ireland embarked with his family for
New York, soon journeying to Boston and to
Burlington, Vt Catching the Western fever, the
Irelands moved to Chicago, where John ob-
tained some schooling. Restless, they traveled
by prairie schooner to Galena, and by river boat
to the trading post of St. Paul, arriving in the
spring of 1853. Here John attended the cathe-
dral school and gave evidence of hunger for
books and of aptitude for argument with the
Presbyterian minister on his milk route. Noting
a vocation in his altar-boy, Bishop Joseph Cretin
[#.#.] sent him to his own Seminaire de Mexi-
mieux, France, and later to the Scholasticat a
Montbel, where he became a student of Bossuet
and a visitor of the Cure d'Ars. Even in the
seminary, he argued with pro-Southern class-
mates, and It was as a "unionist" that he received
his passport and returned to St. Paul for his
ordination of Dec. 21, 1861, The following May
he enlisted as a chaplain and was assigned to the
5th Minnesota Volunteers. As a priest he served
the Catholic soldiers ; as a counselor he minis-
tered to all men; as a fighting chaplain, he won
renown. Stricken with fever at Vicksburg, he
was forced to resign, Apr. 3, 1863, and returned
to his curacy in St. Paul He joined Acker Post,
Grand Army of the Republic, when it was organ-
ized in St. Paul and was nationally prominent
in the organization throughout his life.

As pastor of the Cathedral, which he became
in 1867, Ireland waged a relentless campaign
against political corruption and the St. Paul li-
cpor interests, and organized total abstinence so-
cieties throughout the Northwest. Of command-
ing appearance, a magnetic speaker, militant and
yet conciliatory, startlingly frank, he made an
ideal tribune of the people. As the "Father

Ireland

Mathew of the West," he was eloquent in con-
demnation not merely of the intemperance of the
lowly but also of the organized liquor trade,
which he characterized as lawless and reckless.
Protestant ministers joined the "temperance
crank" in forcing the legislature to pass a high-
license act in 1887. With advancement in the
church, Ireland broadened his field. He stirred
national conventions of the Catholic Total Ab-
stinence Union and public gatherings with ad-
dresses, some of the most striking of which were
printed and widely circulated. In answer to crit-
ics, he obtained a papal brief giving approbation
to the temperance movement. He urged absti-
nence at ordinations and at confirmations and de-
voted columns to the evils of drink in his paper,
The Catholic Bulletin. Though he never ac-
cepted prohibition, had it been properly safe-
guarded, it is doubtful if he would have con-
demned it in principle.

A representative of Bishop Grace at the Vati-
can Council, 1870-71, he gained acquaintance in
ecclesiastical circles. Five years later, he was
named vicar apostolic of Nebraska by the Pope,
who, however, conceded to Grace's petition by
cancelling this appointment and naming him co-
adjutor-bishop with the right of succession. As
titular bishop of Maronea, Ireland was conse-
crated on Dec. 21,1875; and a vigorous coadju-
tor he made, until finally, July 31, 1884, he suc-
ceeded to the see. Participating actively in civic
life, he encouraged his priests and people to do
likewise. He was not an exclusionist, though
some of his brethren scoffed at the statement, "I
am an American citizen," with which he opened
more than one lecture. He was a member of the
American Civic Federation, a president of the
St Paul Law and Order League, an active mem-
ber of the Minnesota State Historical Society, a
founder of the St. Paul Catholic Historical So-
ciety, to whose Acta et Dicta (vols. IV, V) he
was contributing a life of Cretin when death
halted his pen, and an honorary doctor of laws
of Yale University (1901). An advocate of a
clean press, he was on good terms with newspa-
per men. Not apprehensive of lay editorship, he
supported such local Catholic papers as Der
Wanderer, The Irish Standard, and The North-
western Chronicle. When Minnesota celebrated
the Hennepin bicentennial, July 3, 1880, it was
Ireland who gave the outstanding address (Col-
lections of the Minnesota Historical Society, vol.
VI, pt. 2, 1891, pp. 65 ff.). Possibly the Bishop
was secular when he personally closed a lewd
dance hall and forced a governor to prevent an
objectionable prize fight.
Seeing immigrants crowding the slums of

494