Thomas Morrissey manages to encapsulate the guiding argument of his biography in its very first sentence: ‘Daniel Murray’, he writes, ‘was undoubtedly the outstanding Irish Catholic archbishop of the nineteenth century’. This is no small claim. Most historians of nineteenth-century Ireland would probably plump for other candidates. Cases could be made for John MacHale, who presided in Tuam for almost fifty years, Thomas Croke of Cashel whose prominent involvement in national life endures through the G.A.A., or Michael Logue of Armagh who became only the second Irish bishop to receive the red hat of the cardinalate in 1893. More likely, as Morrissey surely recognises, they would pick Murray's sometime adversary and successor in Dublin, and Ireland's first cardinal, Paul Cullen, a man whose global, as well as national, influence, will be analysed in Colin Barr's forthcoming, full-scale biography.

Morrissey may not entirely convince us of his opening claim over the ensuing 200-plus pages, but his unstated mission to rescue Murray from Cullen's considerable historiographical shadow and highlight the former's demonstrable contribution to the reform of the Irish Catholic church during his tenure in Dublin is a very welcome corrective nonetheless. Murray was a significant figure who has been unduly neglected in the history of the church.

The book, nicely produced, and with plentiful illustrations, unfolds in a straightforward, chronological manner. Of Murray's early life we learn that he was a ‘bright and pleasant’ child, not to say a precocious one, who decided on the clerical path early and pursued it on the continent, as was the practice for much of the eighteenth century. His years in Salamanca were followed by his appointment to a parish in the archdiocese of Dublin by Archbishop Troy, who became a mentor. Murray would succeed Troy, having been (reluctantly) designated his coadjutor (even though still a curate) in 1809.

Conscious of having received an excellent schooling himself, Murray made education a central concern from the beginning of his episcopal career, and particularly encouraged the education of the Dublin poor: the Christian Brothers, Sisters of Mercy and Sisters of Charity each opened schools in the city in the 1810s and 1820s. As archbishop he supported the government's plans for national schools in the 1830s, on the grounds that state funding for schooling was crucial, and he became an education commissioner and thereby ‘the first Catholic bishop appointed to a state board since the Treaty of Limerick’ (p. 141). This attracted virulent opposition from MacHale and other bishops who disliked the intended multi-denominational character of the system, but Murray's position won through. He initially made a similar judgement call on university education, when he saw the so-called ‘Godless’ Queen's colleges as a more financially viable prospect than Cullen's Catholic University, though he was reluctantly persuaded to support the latter during the Synod of Thurles.

Morrissey argues that Murray was effectively vindicated on both counts: national education aided cultural change and a measure of escape from poverty, while the Catholic University ultimately did fail. Nonetheless, Murray's reputation as a ‘Castle Catholic’, too ready to collaborate with a hostile British state, was in part based on these stances. His pragmatic instincts on such matters ‘ran counter to the prevailing tide’ in the context of an increasing ‘intertwining of religious and national identity’ (p. 276), but, were, Morrissey intimates, not wrong. The author's defence of Murray's dealings with government during the Famine is rather less convincing; one is left to wonder precisely what, in that life-or-death context, Murray achieved by adopting what Morrissey calls a ‘subtle, gentle approach rather than direct confrontation’ (p. 231).

This book is, then, an admirably comprehensive account of Murray's life and work which succeeds in its aim of reminding us of Murray's existence, and detailing something of his significance in his own lifetime. Murray emerges from the analysis as the ultimate moderate, scarred by his experiences during the 1798 rebellion, and willing to see the advancement of his people by any means other than violence, of deed or word. One might have hoped for a conclusion that played more on the back cover's assertion that such political moderation has value in our ‘time of growing polarisation’ – a fair point – and that did more to drive home the opening claim of Murray as the era's ‘outstanding archbishop’.