There are some people who play an important role in the history of their country, who help to mould events and influence the political thought of their generation. They are important in their time, but because of the fashions of history, whilst not sinking without trace, they only occasionally appear in the footnotes of the history books and the biographies of others. This has been the lot of many of the nineteenth-century Irish nationalists, stereotyped and ridiculed by the revisionists for their nationalism, and scorned by the advocates of physical force for their insistence upon constitutional methods and parliamentary democracy. Such a leader was John MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam... - from the Foreword by Kevin McNamara MP A Formidable Irish Nationalist who fought long and hard for land reform and the repeal of the Union with England, for a large part of his life John MacHale was the most popular man in Ireland, surpassed only by his good friend Daniel O'Connell. Possessing an immense intellect, 'John of Tuam rose from humble beginnings to become a professor of dogmatic theology at an early age and translated many works into the Irish language, including Homer's Iliad. As a priest and bishop MacHale was loyal to the Church, working hard for Catholic education and against the proselytisers of the west. But it is for his care of the poor, particularly during the worst years of the famine, that he is especially remembered and admired. In the nineteenth century, the reputation of John MacHale was worldwide. For the twenty-first-century reader, the life of 'the Lion of the West', which encompasses almost an entire century, from 1791 to 1881, powerfully reflects the tensions that existed between England and Ireland in the nineteenth century.