Journal of a Frustrated Soul: John Henry Newman’s Dublin Diary (November 1853—March 1856) and the Perceived Failure of the Catholic University of Ireland

Volume XXXII (Supplement) of The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, published in October 2008, includes a previously unpublished journal of his time in Dublin which Newman had kept from November 1853 to March 1856. The diary covers a range of administrative and other details to do with his Rectorship of the Catholic University of Ireland but its most significant entries relate to Newman’s relationships with the Irish bishops. One entry in particular raises the question whether and to what extent the bishops were actually committed to the Catholic University project or whether their primary concern was not the more negative one of blocking the efforts of the Queen’s Colleges. While this or very similar material had been reproduced in the Autobiographical Writings and picked up by early biographers such as Wilfrid Ward, it is given an enhanced impact when read in its original context in the Dublin journal. This prompts us to reconsider that historiography which tends to reduce considerations of the success or otherwise of the Catholic University to a clash between Newman and Archbishop Paul Cullen. It must be acknowledged that Newman’s subsequent—i.e. non-contemporary—writing on the matter has been a key determinant of this trend. It is timely then, in the light of the publication of Newman’s Dublin Diary to reassess current thinking and identify more clearly the challenges for historians of the period.