Oracles of God

The Roman Catholic Church and Irish Politics, 1922-37

The forces displayed
sustaining the state
affirming the republic
constitutional republicanism
Fianna Fail
republicans, left and right
the North. Appendices
- versions of the Pastoral Letter of October 1922
political allegiance of the Roman Catholic clergy, 1922-1037.

"Patrick Murray has given us a fascinating account of the theological and political hoops through which Logue and the Irish church as a whole had to jump as the new partitioned Irish state came into being in 1922."
Eoghan Corry Sunday Business Post Feb 2000

"Dr Murray has spent years working in ecclesiastical archives both in Ireland and abroad. The result is an outstanding piece of scholarship which, despite the awkwardness of structure in places, must be required reading for all interested in the history of 20th-century Ireland."
Dr Dermot Keogh, University College Cork Irish Times March 2000

"A substantial and well-equipped book, this has a telling cover picture: Lavery's ‘Blessing of the Colours', with a Free State soldier kneeling with the tricolour before the Bishop on the alter steps, supposedly Mannix."
Books Ireland May 2000

"Murray presents a fascinating study of a complex period which no student of Irish Church-State relations can afford to ignore."
Fr Oliver Rafferty, Prof. of Ecclesiastical History, St Patrick's College, Maynooth The Irish Catholic May 2000

"breaks entirely new ground in chronicling the range of political opinion among Irish churchmen as an independent Irish state was established. Murray's quarrying in ecclesiastical archives shows industry and judgement: an outstanding book and, incidentally, a credit to a comparative newcomer in the publishing field, UCD Press."
John Bowman Sunday Tribune Dec 2000

"Murray draws on a wide range of diocesan archives than was available to earlier researchers. Keeping his focus on the political, he succeeds in expanding our understanding of the serious divisions of opinion within the church, and highlights the rationales presented."
Mary Harris, National University of Ireland Irish Studies Review 9 (1) 2001