Thomas Croke
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Thomas William Croke (May 28, 1824 – July 22, 1902) was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel and Emly in Ireland. The main Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) stadium in Dublin in named Croke Park in honour of the Archbishop Croke.
Born in Castlecor, County Cork, in 1824 Thomas Croke was educated in Carleville in County Cork and in the Irish College in Paris. He was ordained a priest of the Catholic Church in 1846. The Irish radical William O'Brien said that the then Fr. Croke fought on the barricades in Paris during the 1848 revolution. He returned to Ireland, where in 1858 he became President of St. Colman’s College in Fermoy, County Cork and later he became the parish priest of Doneraile in 1865. Croke attended the First Vatican Council as the theologian to the Bishop of Cloyne 1870. He was appointed second Bishop of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1870. Croke became a member of the Irish hierarchy when he became Archbishop of Cashel, one of the four Catholic Irish archbishoprics (Cashel & Emly, Dublin, Armagh and Tuam) in 1875.
Croke was a strong supporter of Irish nationalism, aligning himself with the Land League and the chairman of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Charles Stewart Parnell. He also associated himself with the temperance movement of Fr. Matthew and of the Gaelic League from its foundation in 1893. Within Catholicism he was a supporter of Gallicanism, as opposed to the Ultramontanism favoured by the Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cardinal Cullen.
His support of nationalism caused successive British governments and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland's governments in Dublin to be deeply suspicious of him, as were some less politicially-aligned Irish bishops.
Following the scandal that erupted over Parnell's sexual relationship with Kitty O'Shea, the wife of fellow MP Captain Willie O'Shea, Archbishop Croke withdrew from active participation in nationalist politics.
He died at the Archbishop's Palace in Cashel on July 22, 1902, aged 78. In honour of Croke, his successors as Archbishop of Cashel and Emly traditionally are asked to throw in the ball at the minor Gaelic football and hurling All-Ireland finals.
