Book Launch of Gerald O’Donovan: A Life, 1871 – 1942 by John F. Ryan

About Gerald O’Donovan

Gerald O’Donovan was an extraordinary figure in Irish cultural life. A Catholic priest and scholar, he was significant nationally in the Co-Op Movement, and the Gaelic League, a close friend of Yeats, George Moore and Edward Martyn. But he was unknown in Ireland, ignored for more than a century, until John F. Ryan wrote this biography.

O’Donovan trained for the priesthood in Maynooth. After ordination, he served as a curate in Loughrea, Co Galway, where he oversaw the decoration of the new cathedral. He was startlingly non-denominational in his choice of artists: he commissioned banners from the Yeats sisters and a stained glass window from Sarah Purser. Loughrea Cathedral, the best example of an Irish Revival Church, stands as a lasting monument to him.

The Priest vs The Vatican

Father O’Donovan was hugely popular in Loughrea. But his ministry there came to a bitter end. He got into rows about the church’s role in education, particularly that of girls. He was a Post-Vatican 2 man long before its time. He clashed so badly with his bishop, he abandoned Loughrea and the priesthood. A huge crowd of townspeople gathered at the station to wish him well when he left in 1904 – the same year as James Joyce.

A Whistleblower Author in Exile

O’Donovan moved to London and published a number of novels, which were critically well received and sold well in England and the United States. But not in Ireland.

He was denounced by the Church because his books were an expose of what he saw as the tyranny and corruption of the Catholic Church. His first novel FATHER RALPH, published in 1913 was a huge hit. A classic whistleblower, strongly autobiographical, it depicts the Catholic Church as the chief obstacle to the improvement of life in Ireland. Its realistic account outraged the Irish Hierarchy and Rome.

WAITING, is an attack on the Ne Temere Decree. The main character Maurice’s teaching career and subsequent political career are destroyed by the Church because he marries a Protestant.

VOCATIONS describes how young women in small town Ireland are made to become nuns despite not having vocations. O’Donovan’s books were remarkable because he was a sharp, intelligent and extremely well-informed critic of the Church.