John Charles McQuaid

John Charles McQuaid was born in Cootehill, County Cavan, on 28 July 1895, to Dr. Eugene McQuaid and Jennie Corry. His mother died a week after his birth. His father remarried and Dr. McQuaid's new wife raised John and his sister Helen as her own. It was not until his teenage years that John learned that his biological mother had died.

He was a stellar student at the Cootehill National School[1] After primary school, McQuaid attended St. Patrick's College in Cavan Town and then Blackrock College in Dublin, run by the Holy Ghost Fathers, where he received average grades. In 1911 he entered Clongowes Wood Jesuit College in County Kildare with his brother Eugene.

In 1913, on completion of his secondary studies, he entered the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Kimmage, Dublin. The celebrations of the centenary of the birth of Thomas Davis, a famous Protestant nationalist, occurred in 1913 while McQuaid was a novice in Kimmage. Significantly McQuaid referred in his notebook to Davis' famous question: "What matter that at different shrines, we pray unto one God?" He noted: "Yes for a logical Protestant but No for Catholics. We must heed what is in the creed. ... If a neutral nationality be set up, if Protestants are drawn in and not converted, is not the supernatural end missed?"

While serving his novitiate, he studied at University College, Dublin (UCD), where he was awarded both a first class honours BA in 1917 and MA in Ancient Classics in 1918. He was also awarded an honours Higher Diploma in Education in 1919, while acting as prefect in Blackrock College, 1918–1921.

He was ordained a priest on 29 June 1924. McQuaid attended the Gregorian University in Rome where he completed a doctorate in theology. In November 1925 he was recalled to Ireland to serve on the staff of Blackrock College.

In November 1925 McQuaid was appointed to the staff at Blackrock College in Dublin where he remained until 1939. He served as Dean of Studies from 1925–1931 and President of the College from 1931–1939.

Although regarded as a strict taskmaster, Dr. McQuaid strove to improve the performance of average and poor students. Holy Ghost priest Michael O'Carroll was a student in Blackrock when McQuaid was appointed Dean of Studies. He recounts how, when McQuaid discovered that a class of sixth-year boys lacked even the rudiments of Latin late in term, he announced in his low steely voice: 'Gentlemen we shall begin with mensa'. By the end of that term, his systematic exposition of grammar and syntax enabled 17 of the 18 boys to pass the Leaving Certificate examination in Latin.

At Blackrock he soon made his name as an administrator and as a headmaster with detailed knowledge of educational developments in other countries and with wide cultural views. In 1929 he was appointed special delegate on the Department of Education's Commission of Enquiry into the teaching of English; in 1930 he was the official delegate of the Catholic Headmasters' Association at the first International Congress of Free Secondary Education held in Brussels; he was present in the same capacity at later Congresses in The Hague, Luxembourg and Fribourg. Elected chairman of the Catholic Headmasters' Association in 1931, he remained in the chair until 1940, being specially co-opted to it in the autumn of 1939 on his ceasing to be President of Blackrock.

In an appreciation of Dr McQuaid on the 25th anniversary of his consecration as archbishop, Father Roland Burke Savage S.J. wrote: "Though a classical scholar by training and a life-long lover of Virgil, as a teacher Dr McQuaid found that he could best form his boys through teaching them an appreciation and a mastery of English prose. In teaching the theory of dramatic structure to his honours leaving class, he frequently drew his illustrations from a study of the composition of famous paintings."[2]

Father Burke Savage also wrote that Blackrock had a noted rugby record and that Dr McQuaid "realized fully the value of games in strengthening both body and character; he knew that on the rugby pitch as or the cricket crease boys learned to be unselfish, to take hard knocks well, to co-operate with each other and to work as a team .... In forming the character of his boys Dr McQuaid imbued them with a virile Catholicism and a strong sense of their social responsibilities."

While he was being trained as a novice and then as a priest, McQuaid's great ambition was to become a missionary to Africa. Noel Browne's biographer, John Horgan has written that: "For many years ...his ambition was not ecclesiastical preferment, but missionary service: at least four requests to be transferred to Africa were turned down by his superiors. He could have been one of the greatest missionary bishops of the century – all that energy, and intellect, would have gone through the continent like a whirlwind. These talents were unleashed instead on Dublin and on Ireland."[3]

Blackrock College had educated many senior Irish political and business leaders. McQuaid was close to Éamon de Valera, a future Taoiseach, himself a former Blackrock College teacher. He would later influence de Valera in drafting the modern Irish constitution (Bunreacht na hÉireann).[4]

The 31st International Eucharistic Congress was held in Dublin in 1932, over five days (22–26 June), in a city decorated with bunting, banners, garlands, floral arrangements, shrines and various other forms of religious decoration. The main pontifical High Mass on 26 June was attended by an estimated one million people.

Regarding the garden party, Roland Burke Savage, then a Jesuit novice wrote in 1965:

The International Eucharistic Congress held in Dublin in June 1932 gave Dr. McQuaid an early opportunity to show his mastery as an organiser in giving a memorable garden party in the grounds of Blackrock where the Cardinal Legate and the many hundred Bishops assembled for the Congress had the opportunity to mingle with a huge gathering of distinguished and undistinguished guests. The present writer was one of the undistinguished guests who gained entry by paying a modest subscription. Then a Jesuit novice home on furlough, when his turn in the queue came he was received by Dr. McQuaid with the same exquisite courtesy with which he had received cardinals, archbishops and ministers of state.[5]

Dr. McQuaid's courtesy and diplomacy were used to considerable political effect. Historian Dermot Keogh wrote

The President [of Blackrock College] Dr. John Charles McQuaid was a friend of the family who had performed a very great service for de Valera when he had first come to office in 1932. During the Eucharistic Congress, McQuaid had hosted a garden party to welcome the papal nuncio Cardinal Lauri. He had taken expert care of an awkward piece of protocol for de Valera. The governor general, James MacNeill, and the government ministers were in a state of war. De Valera was attempting to abolish the office. Neither side could afford to meet for fear of a public incident. McQuaid saw that both 'factions' were introduced independently to the papal nuncio at the garden party in Castle Dawson.[6]

However in a breach of protocol, the governor-general was not invited to the lavish state reception in Dublin Castle later that day to welcome the papal legate. Given such treatment it was hardly surprising that the situation came to a head later in 1932. The King engineered a compromise, whereby de Valera withdrew his dismissal request and McNeill, who was due to retire at the end of 1932, would push forward his retirement date by a month or so. McNeill, at the King's request, resigned on 1 November 1932.[7]

In a 1998 article in Studies magazine, McQuaid's Holy Ghost confrere Father Michael O'Carroll wrote that Éamon de Valera entered McQuaid's life at about the time the latter became President of Blackrock College in 1931. "De Valera was a past pupil with an amazing attachment to the college. His sons were educated there and he lived nearby. He and his wife Sinéad got to know Dr. McQuaid and friendship between them blossomed. The college president was a regular guest in the house and eventually his advice was sought in a very important de Valera achievement, the drafting of a new constitution for the country. Years later when de Valera was president and host to a number of bishops who had come to Blackrock College for its centenary celebrations [1960] he stated that the articles in the constitution most admired had been influenced by Dr. McQuaid who was now Archbishop of Dublin."[4]

This is a somewhat romanticised account that fails to mention the tensions that arose between the two men in the 1940s and 50s when McQuaid was Archbishop of Dublin and de Valera was frequently head of Government. In 1952 McQuaid writing to the Apostolic Nuncio, complained "From Mr de Valera's re-assumption of political leadership, the chief element of note, as far as the church is concerned, is a policy of distance. That policy is seen in the failure to consult any Bishop ..."[8]

In 1937 a new Irish Constitution was adopted which, inter alia, acknowledged the "special position" of the Catholic Church "as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens."[9] It also forbade any established state church and encouraged freedom of religion.

Chapter 8 of John Cooney's "John Charles McQuaid, Ruler of Catholic Ireland" is entitled "Co-maker of the Constitution" and begins:

From early 1937 Eamonn de Valera was bombarded with letters daily – sometimes twice a day – from Fr. John McQuaid C.S.Sp. They were crammed with suggestions, viewpoints, documents and learned references on nearly every aspect on what was to become Bunreacht na hÉireann – the Constitution of Ireland. McQuaid was the persistent adviser, 'one of the great architects of the Constitution, albeith in the shadows'. However, McQuaid's efforts to enshrine the absolute claims of the Catholic Church as the Church of Christ were frustrated by de Valera.

In contrast historian Dermot Keogh (co-author with Andrew McCarthy of "The Making of the Irish Constitution 1937") has written:

The chapter entitled "Co-maker of the Constitution", is an example of this overstatement. The author does not appear to understand the complexity involved in handling the McQuaid papers relating to the drafting process. Many documents are undated and it is quite difficult to determine their respective influence on those who drafted the final document. The term 'co-maker' implies that the archbishop enjoyed an equal share with de Valera. However, this is to further compound a fundamental misunderstanding of the drafting process: de Valera was not the ‘other’ author of the 1937 constitution. To over-personalise in this way the functioning of government under Fianna Fáil is to distort a complex reality. If there was a single author of the 1937 constitution then that author must have been John Hearne, the legal officer in the Department of External Affairs. Maurice Moynihan was also a significant force. McQuaid played an important role in the whole process. That is not in dispute. But to suggest that he was the "co-maker" of the constitution is simply not defensible.

[10]

McQuaid's appointment in 1940 to the Archdiocese of Dublin, the second most important and populous in the country (see Primate of Ireland), came at a more stable point in Irish politics, following the violence involving the IRA and the Blueshirts and the tensions caused by the Economic War with the UK in the 1930s. The beginning of "the Emergency" (Ireland's term for the Second World War), had produced a new mode of national consensus. Also McQuaid's relations with the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, were excellent in contrast to most of the hierarchy who were distinctly cool towards him. From the evidence of Irish Government archives made available in the 1990s it is clear that de Valera had pressed McQuaid's candidacy on the Vatican. However, it is doubtful if the Vatican needed much urging. McQuaid had an outstanding reputation as a Catholic educationalist and had been close to Archbishop Edward Byrne of Dublin, his immediate predecessor. His name had already been mentioned in connection with his native diocese of Kilmore.

However de Valera was later to state that he had also been impressed by McQuaid's social concerns at a time when the hardships of the war were particularly affecting the poor. The hierarchy and clergy of the Irish Church reflected the views of the strong and middling farmer class from which they were mostly drawn and were uncomprehending of urban life and poverty. McQuaid, as de Valera knew, was different and this was reflected in his first Lenten pastoral in 1941. "The very widespread yearning for social peace is itself proof of the grave need of social reform", McQuaid wrote. But he emphasised that "whatever shape the detailed reform of the social structure ultimately may take, the only lasting basis of reconstruction can be the true faith that we profess."[11]

David C. Sheehy, Dublin diocesan archivist wrote in 2003 that "McQuaid saw the achievement of high office as the natural and appropriate outcome for someone of his background, education and talents. Like Bernard Law Montgomery taking over command of the British Eighth Army before El Alamein, in the late summer of 1942, McQuaid's accession to the See of Dublin, less than two years before, unleashed a man of ability combined with prodigious energy and in his prime. For Monty and McQuaid, prima donnas both, everything that had gone before in their very different lives had been but a preparation for the assumption of senior command and for the challenge of a lifetime. Like warriors of old, they gratefully responded to the bugle call and strode forward to claim their place in history."[12]

McQuaid's consecration at St. Mary's Pro Cathedral

He was appointed Archbishop of Dublin on 6 November 1940 at the age of 45. His episcopal motto was ‘Testimonium Perhibere Veritati’-"to bear witness to the truth" from John 18:37. McQuaid oversaw a massive expansion of the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Dublin during his term. He also established a wide range of social services for the poor of the city. He is especially remembered for his work in the area of charity. In the first year of his episcopate he oversaw the establishment of the Catholic Social Welfare Conference which co-ordinated the work of the great number of charitable organisations existing in the city. The following year (1942) he set up the Catholic Social Welfare Bureau which helped emigrants and their families. He had a personal interest in providing for people who suffered physically, mentally and spiritually. During his episcopate the number of clergy increased from 370 to 600, the number of religious from 500 to 700 and the number of parishes from 71 to 131.[13] In addition some 80 new churches were built, 250 primary schools and 100 secondary schools.[14]

In a 1998 article in Studies, historian Dermot Keogh wrote about the effect of the Archbishop's work on his own life as a schoolboy: "Between 1940 and 1972, the year of his resignation as archbishop [sic.], Dr McQuaid had helped provide 47 new parishes in the archdiocese, together with the necessary primary and secondary educational infrastructure in each of those areas. My generation had been a beneficiary of that policy. In the early 1950s, I had moved from the small two-roomed school beside the old church in Raheny to new premises carved out of the nearby St Anne's woods. There the classes grew exponentially – to 56 in my case. Here was a measure for social change and for the new pastoral challenge facing the Catholic Church in the 1950s – a decade of high emigration, high unemployment and the expansion of the working class into the Dublin suburbs."[15]

This record of phenomenal expansion had one curious side effect. Dublin has two Protestant cathedrals largely built in the Middle Ages but no Catholic cathedral. The centre of the Catholic Archdiocese is the early 19th century St Mary's Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, a side street in the city centre. The Pro-Cathedral was never intended to be other than a temporary acting cathedral, pending the availability of funds to build a full cathedral. (In the aftermath of the 1921 Treaty, the Church of Ireland offered to return either St.Patrick's Cathedral or Christ Church to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland: they refused the offer). Archbishop McQuaid bought the gardens in the centre of Merrion Square and announced plans to erect a cathedral there. However, he felt obliged to use the funds originally designated for the new cathedral to build the new churches and schools instead. His successor eventually handed over the gardens to Dublin Corporation and they are now a public park.[16] As a result of the Archbishop's sense of priorities, Dublin still has no Catholic cathedral.

Dr. McQuaid also took a keen interest in industrial relations and was involved in resolving several disputes during his time as archbishop. During the Teachers Strike of 1946 he sympathised with the teachers and actively supported them.[14]

McQuaid also controversially extended the ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin. Originally Catholics had objected to being excluded from the university from 1695 until the Irish 1793 Roman Catholic Relief Act was passed. In the ensuing century Trinity came to be seen as a dangerous bastion of Protestant influence in Ireland. Exemptions were granted to businessmen such as Al Byrne (in 1948), provided that they did not join any college societies.[17] The policy gave rise to a doggerel verse: "Young men may loot, perjure and shoot / And even have carnal knowledge / But however depraved, their souls will be saved / If they don't go to Trinity College".[18] The general prohibition was lifted by bishops meeting at Maynooth in June 1970, towards the end of McQuaid's episcopacy.

Finally, in 1961 he founded the Colleges' Volunteer Corps, drawn from Roman Catholic secondary colleges in Dublin, which carried out social work. It also served, in full uniform, as an honour guard each when he visited Lourdes, during the Patrician Year and on other occasions. Restricted to male students during his lifetime, it was opened to female students by his successors.

In the 1950s, Archbishop McQuaid ordered the purchase of Ashurst, a Victorian neo-Gothic mansion on Military Road in Killiney, an upmarket suburb in south County Dublin. The house had been built in the 1860s. He renamed the mansion Notre Dame de Bois, and it became his chief residence thereafter, the Archbishop preferring the luxurious residence to Archbishop's House, the official episcopal palace in Drumcondra.

In 2007 Columba Press published "Hold Firm: John Charles McQuaid and the Second Vatican Council" by Francis Xavier Carty. The book focuses on how the legendary archbishop handled the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) and its aftermath in his own diocese.

John Charles McQuaid will always be remembered for his attempt to reassure his flock at the end of the Council that "No change will worry the tranquility of your Christian lives". How wrong he was. There was to be no more tranquility in the Dublin diocese as priests and laity struggled to implement the new liturgical changes, to allow in the winds of change unloosed by Pope John XXIII, to reach out to non-Catholics with the new-fangled ecumenism and then endure the storm raised by the condemnation of artificial contraception in the encyclical Humanae Vitae issued by Pope Paul VI in July 1968.

Dr McQuaid, whose watchwords were control and discipline, was ill-prepared for these turbulent years. Much in his traditional clerical formation rebelled against the new spirit of renewal, aggiornamento, emanating from the Council. He confided to a fellow conservative prelate, Bishop Michael Browne of Galway, that the Holy Faith nuns "will do anything to aid a parish priest. They are untouched by modern craze for aggiornamento". But Dr McQuaid was above all loyal to his Church and pope and in his own way introduced the necessary changes. They were "a new emphasis on old truths rather than new truths" he assured his priests and flock, divided between those who wanted to go faster and those who thought Vatican Two was a lot of hot air which would blow away and life would go on as before.

FX Carty tells the story of that decade, which opens with the Council and closes with the death of Dr McQuaid. His research has thrown new light on the approach of the archbishop to the challenges, especially in the communications field. A poor communicator himself, he inspired the setting up of the Radharc religious TV programme under Fr Joe Dunn and he appointed the first diocesan lay press officer, Osmond Dowling. The files of the press office describe Dowling's private purgatory as he tried to present and defend the strange world of a diocese ruled by a clerical autocrat.

Dr McQuaid's attendance at the Council sessions in Rome was dutiful but without much enthusiasm. He and his fellow bishops were unprepared for the excitement generated by the first session. Dr McQuaid for his part was unimpressed by the reporting of the Council by the Irish religious affairs correspondents. He told the Public Image Committee that "the criticism produced is quite ignorant, the reporting on the Council has been very bad". He told Fr Burke-Savage from Rome: "I am dismayed by the facile ignorance of the journalists who are writing about the documents that have cost us years of work, and by the more facile dictation in regard to what we bishops must now do".

The archbishop would sometimes joke about his "ogre" image in the media. Behind the aloofness was a sense of humour but also, surprisingly, a sense of insecurity as he grappled with unwelcome change. He was devastated when the obligatory offer to resign on his 75th birthday was accepted by Pope Paul, albeit with a year's extension. Carty writes, "He was possibly worried that the Pope's rapid acceptance of his resignation was a negative judgement on his work".[33]

Dr. McQuaid resigned his post on 4 January 1971 and formally relinquished the government of the Archdiocese of Dublin when his successor (Dermot Ryan, appointed 29 December 1971) was ordained Archbishop on 13 February 1972.

In his biography of the archbishop, John Cooney relates a number of stories that suggest that Dr. McQuaid had an unhealthy interest in children. The main allegation – that the Archbishop had attempted to sexually assault a boy in a Dublin pub – is based on an unpublished essay by McQuaid's antagonist Noel Browne. Reviewers who praised the biography stated that the author should have left out these allegations (e.g. Dermot Keogh, Professor of History and John A. Murphy, Emeritus Professor of History at University College Cork).[36]

There is a satirical account of the controversy by then Irish Times journalist Kevin Myers in his Irishman's Diary on 10 November 1999.[37] There is also an account by Colum Kenny, Associate Professor of Communications at Dublin City University, of a meeting he had with the Archbishop as a teenager in the 1960s. Although his attitude to Dr. McQuaid is hostile, he regards Cooney's allegations as absurd. He also provides this revealing vignette: "I remember the archbishop later sighing about the amount of correspondence he received from people. He waved a hand across the papers on his desk and muttered: They write to me about the system. What system? There are only people; or words to that effect."[38]

Two separate allegations of paedophile abuse by McQuaid were brought to the attention of the Murphy Commission.[39] One complaint alleges abuse of a 12-year-old boy by Archbishop McQuaid in 1961. The complaint concerned an adult who, in January 2003, complained to the Eastern Health Board that he had been abused by Archbishop McQuaid 42 years previously. The EHB and its successor the Health Service Executive (HSE), have responsibility for caring for minors (under 18) who have been sexually abused and it is not clear where their duty lies in relation to adults accusing deceased persons. When this complaint came to light several years later, the HSE did not pass this complaint on to the Murphy Commission – again for unexplained reasons – but the Commission is satisfied that this was simply due to human error. In May 2009, the HSE passed the complaint to the then Director of Child Protection in the Dublin Archdiocese, who informed Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who immediately informed the Murphy Commission.

The archdiocese then organised a further trawl of its files and found a letter "which showed that there was an awareness among a number of people in the archdiocese that there had been a concern expressed" about Archbishop McQuaid in 1999. John Cooney's biography of the Archbishop was published in 1999 and generated enormous publicity – including the publication in the Sunday Times of Cooney's allegations regarding paedophilia. This was very likely to have generated the awareness referred to.

Then in 2010, after the Commission's report had been published, Archbishop Martin told it he had received another abuse complaint against Archbishop McQuaid. The supplementary report of the Commission said "Archbishop Martin was under no obligation to give the commission this information". It was now a matter for the archdiocese "to investigate all complaints against this cleric,” it said. The 2010 complaint is the subject of a civil action against the archdiocese.

The Supplement to the Murphy Report can be read at http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Dublin_Supp_Rpt.pdf/Files/Dublin_Supp_Rpt.pdf It is a very short document, does not mention Archbishop McQuaid by name, and – unlike the main Report that goes into great detail about child abuse allegations – gives very few details of the claims.

Meanwhile, John Cooney has called on Cardinal Desmond Connell to apologise unreservedly for dismissing claims that the Archbishop McQuaid had improper sexual relations with boys. (Cardinal Connell was Archbishop of Dublin when John Cooney's book was published in 1999 and described his claims of sex abuse as "rumour, hearsay and conjecture".) A statement from John Cooney said: "It inflicted huge moral and material damage on me as an author and journalist. I would expect Cardinal Connell to offer me, and my publisher, the O’Brien Press, this long overdue apology."[40]

Martin Sixsmith in The Lost Child of Philomena Lee[41] reproduces the letter from Browne and claims McQuaid's total opposition to a government Adoption Act proposed to remove control over adoption of extra-marital children from the Catholic church and vest it in the government collapsed once he was shown the letter.

In 2009 a Commission of Investigation produced a Report into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin, known as the Murphy Report. The purpose of the Commission was to probe the manner in which complaints of clerical abuse were handled.[42]

A first complaint about Fr. James McNamee (d.2002) bathing with naked adolescent boys at Stella Maris F.C. was made in January 1960, investigated initially by auxiliary bishop Patrick Dunne and reported to Archbishop McQuaid.[43] Fr.McNamee denied the allegations and was believed by the bishops. McQuaid wrote: "as he is a worthy priest I agree that we could not refuse to accept his word."[44] Fr.McNamee moved on from the club but, Archbishop McQuaid said, not immediately "lest he be defamed."[45] Many subsequent complaints were made about Fr.McNamee.[46]

In August 1960 a UK photographic processing company passed on film posted to them from Fr. Edmondus [a pseudonym] in Dublin to Scotland Yard. The photographs were of girls' private parts. It was passed to the Commissioner of the Gardaí, who asked Archbishop McQuaid to take over the investigation.[47] He in turn passed it to Bishop Dunne, who had grave concerns that a canonical crime had been committed.[48] Fr.Edmondus admitted to Archbishop McQuaid that he had taken pictures of children at Crumlin Hospital, because of ignorance and curiosity regarding female sex organs. He related his social discomfiture with females as he was raised with brothers (in fact he had a sister).[49] Archbishop McQuaid and Bishop Dunne finally agreed that a canonical crime had not been committed.[50] Archbishop McQuaid arranged for Fr.Edmondus to see a doctor for instruction "to end his wonderment" at female genitalia.[49] The Commission believed that "Archbishop McQuaid acted as he did to avoid scandal in both Ireland and Rome and without regard to the protection of children in Crumlin Hospital."[51] It described his usage of the word "wonderment" to describe Fr.Edmondus's actions as "risible."[52] It further added, "The apparent cancellation by Archbishop McQuaid of his original plan to pursue the priest through the procedures of canon law was a disaster. It established a pattern of not holding abusers responsible which lasted for decades[53] ... no attempt was made to monitor Fr.Edmondus in other placements."[54]

In 1961 Archbishop McQuaid established a hostel in Dublin for boys who had been in industrial schools – mainly Artane – and assigned priests to see to their spiritual welfare and to help them integrate into society. One of these priests was Diarmuid Martin who went on to become Archbishop of Dublin in 2004 and to take a strong line against alleged clerical abusers. In June 2009, John Cooney wrote an article in the Irish Independent demanding to know why Archbishop Martin had not denounced the alleged horrors of Artane 40 years previously.[55] Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs correspondent of the Irish Times also wrote an article entitled, "Archbishop Defends Abuse Inaction"[56] in which Dr.Martin stated, "Social workers, health boards and the diocese were trying to reform and eventually close down the institutions ... Consensus soon emerged that the best – and indeed the only – option for Artane would be to close it down, which happened in 1969...We did consistently hear stories of severe physical abuse and Dickensian conditions there [at industrial schools]. There was no mention of explicitly sexual abuse. The situation was referred by Archbishop McQuaid to the Department of Education."

On Saturday 7 April 1973 McQuaid was too ill to get up at his usual time of 6.30am to say Mass at his private residence, Notre Dame de Bois (originally called Ashurst), on Military Road in Killiney, south County Dublin. He was taken to Loughlinstown Hospital where he died within an hour. Shortly before his death he asked nurse Margaret O'Dowd if he had any chance of reaching heaven. She told him that if he as Archbishop could not get to heaven, few would. This answer appeared to satisfy him and he lay back on the pillow to await death. He died at about 11am.[57] He is buried in St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese.

In a sermon delivered in 1955 on the occasion of the Catholic University of Ireland centenary, McQuaid praised his predecessor Cardinal Paul Cullen: "No writer has done adequate justice to his character or stature...Silent, magnanimous, far-seeing, Cardinal Cullen would seem to be as heedless of self-justification after death, as he was intrepid in administration during life. Not his the multitude of letters and scrupulous autobiography that help a later age to reconstruct a picture of the unspeaking dead."

Shortly after McQuaid's death, Cardinal John Carmel Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster, predicted in an RTÉ radio documentary that history would vindicate him. In his work "Ireland 1912–1985" Professor John Joseph Lee wrote: "The Church is a bulwark, perhaps now the main bulwark of the civic culture. It is the very opportunism of the traditional value system that leaves religion as the main bulwark between a reasonably civilised civil society and the untrammelled predatory instincts of individual and pressure group selfishness, curbed only by the power of rival predators .... If religion were no longer to fulfil its historic civilising mission as a substitute for internalised values of civic responsibility, the consequences for the country, no less than for the church, could be lethal" (page 675).

In his book "Twentieth Century Ireland", published in 2005 historian Dermot Keogh writes:

"Ostensibly the old order was changing. The resignation of two figures from Irish public life at the beginning of the 1970s reinforced that perception. On 4 January 1972 [sic.], John Charles McQuaid retired as archbishop of Dublin after spending over 30 years in the post; he died on 7 April 1973. Eamon de Valera retired from the presidency in June 1973; he died on 29 August 1975. Both men had been close friends in the 1930s. They were representative of a culture of service that had been a feature of the political life of the young state. In the 1970s both men had lost their relevance. But the culture of service, upon which both had built their public lives, was an ever-diminishing influence in a state which had come to revere the philosophy of radical individualism."[58]

In a hostile article in the Irish Times on 7 April 2003, McQuaid's biographer, John Cooney provided a different slant to the observations of Professors Lee and Keogh:

"Generally, there was a consensus that McQuaid's death marked the end of the era of Renaissance-style prelates. Officially, the President, Eamon de Valera, was "deeply grieved" to hear the news. In the privacy of Loughlinstown Hospital Dev wept over the corpse of the Holy Ghost priest on whose behalf he had lobbied the Vatican in 1940 for elevation to the See of Dublin and the Primacy of Ireland. Although their relationship at times was strained, both men co-operated to control people's lives for so long in a closed and puritanical society which the writer Seán Ó Faoláin memorably decried as a "dreary Eden".

• John Feeney: John Charles McQuaid: The Man and the Mask (Dublin: Mercier Press 1974)
• Noel Browne: Against the Tide, (Gill & Macmillan, 1986 ISBN 0-7171-1458-9 (out of print)
• Bernard J Canning: Bishops of Ireland 1870–1987, Ballyshannon [Ireland] : Donegal Democrat, 1987
• John Cooney: John Charles McQuaid: Ruler of Catholic Ireland, O'Brien Press, 2Rev Ed 2003, ISBN 0-86278-811-0
• Patrick J. Corish: The Irish Catholic Experience: A Historical Survey, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1985
• Joe Dunn: No Tigers in Africa, Dublin: Columba Press, 1986
• Joe Dunn: No Lions in the Hierarchy: an anthology of sorts, Dublin: Columba Press, 1994
• John Whyte: Church and State in Modern Ireland 1923–1979, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan; Totowa, N.J. : Barnes & Noble Books, 2nd ed 1980
• John Horgan: Noel Browne Passionate Outsider, Gill and Macmillan, 2000
• Antoinette Quinn: Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, Gill & Macmillan Ltd, 2001
• Francis Xavier Carty: Hold Firm: John Charles McQuaid and the Second Vatican Council, Dublin: Columba Press 2007
• Clara Cullen and Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh: His Grace is Displeased: The Selected Correspondence of John Charles McQuaid, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, 1940-1972, Merrion Press, 2012

• Archdiocese of Dublin
• Contraception and Conscience, Archbishop McQuaid's pastorals on contraception