The New International Encyclopædia/O'Malley, Thadeus

O'MALLEY, Thadeus (1796-1877). An Irish Roman Catholic priest and political writer, born at Garryowen, near Limerick. After his ordination in 1819 he went to America. In 1827 he was suspended on account of his ecclesiastical views, and returned to Dublin to be assistant priest of the cathedral. The first object of his pamphleteering was to obtain a poor law for Ireland, the second to improve the national school system, of which he published his opinion in A Sketch of the State of Popular Education in Holland, Prussia, Belgium, and France (2d ed. 1840). Founder of the Social Economist (1845), he used a later newspaper which he started, called the Federalist, for the advocacy of his views, which differed from O'Connell's in their disapproval of complete severance from England and belief that recourse to arms was necessary to accomplish the ideal federal union. O'Malley tried unsuccessfully to unite O'Connell's Old Ireland Party with his own Young Irelanders, and after 1870 he was a conspicuous home rule advocate, but, though orthodox in faith, was frequently rebuked by his superiors in the Church for the freedom with which he criticised their discipline in such works as his Harmony in Religion (1870). His last book was Home Rule on the Basis of Federation (1873).