Sir, – I write regarding Diarmaid Ferriter’s article on the 1932 eucharistic congress (“Pope and ceremony: how the 1932 congress melded church and State”, Weekend, June 2nd).
Prof Ferriter writes: “For the new government, it provided an opportunity to emphasise its impeccable Catholic credentials and win over its critics in that regard. The strategy worked.”
However, there were a number of incidents at the congress, particularly in relation to etiquette, that brought de Valera into disfavour with the Vatican. These incidents mainly centred on a formal and diplomatic material culture considered by Fianna Fáil to be too British or imperialist.
Republican Party members were renowned for their austerity during the 1920s and 1930s, typically wearing lounge suits at major occasions, unlike Cumann na nGaedheal members, who customarily wore full morning dress at appropriate official functions, including a winged collar, tails and top hat. In my research, among the most often recounted anecdotes about the eucharistic congress is one that tells of how, when the papal legate arrived in Dún Laoghaire, he walked down the gangway of his ship and straight past de Valera and members of the cabinet because, in their lounge suits and soft hats, rather than the requisite formal attire, he thought they were secret service men.
The Vatican obviously saw the wearing of formal attire in the presence of the pope or his representatives as a matter of respect, regardless of the perceived origins of the dress, and de Valera was reprimanded over what was seen as disrespect. Such conflict between differing perceptions of etiquette arose again in connection with conferring honour on the papal legate. About a month before the congress, Charles Bewley, the Irish ambassador to the Vatican, contacted the Irish government to ask what decoration the papal legate was to be awarded, stating: “Decorations are the recognised way in which one state shows courtesy to another state, and when the Pope sends a Special Legate . . . to a country it is the invariable custom to bestow them on the Legate and his suite, as the Holy Father does not accept decorations”.
A motion by Bewley proposing establishment of a special decoration was rejected by the executive council, and the minister of external association instructed Bewley to tell the Vatican that “no decorations existed in the Irish Free State, and that the feeling was very strongly opposed to the establishment of any form of decoration or order”. Bewley’s reply stated that offence was taken at what was considered to be “a discourtesy to the Holy See”, and de Valera was criticised for what was seen as unseemly politicking. He was also criticised for showing discourtesy to the governor general of Ireland at the congress dinner in Dublin Castle, and again on the basis of bringing politics into what was intended to be a religious event. Although at first glance the congress seemed to act as a show of unity, de Valera’s “strategy” was not to show his “impeccable Catholic credentials”, which would have involved assenting to the etiquette expected by the church, but to reassert republican values. This ran counter to the intentions of the organisers of the congress, who had gone to great lengths to emphasise that it was a Catholic, international event rather than an Irish one, to the extent of instructing bunting manufacturers to “eschew national flag bunting” and also the colour combination of red, white and blue to avoid any controversy. – Yours, etc,