Fr. Denis Fahey: Catholic Ireland’s Forgotten Integralist

“About the ‘rights of man’ as they are called,the people have heard enough: it is time they should hear of the Rights of God.” –Pope Leo XIII

Catholic Ireland and Historical Haze

Certain historically prominent ideological positions and their attendant milieus defy comprehension by contemporary man. Inquiry tends to elicit confusion on their part – the tired: “How could they have actually believed that?” is muttered or quietly considered by casual observers. 

Having grown up in an effectively post-Catholic nation, the shadow of the Church’s political and social hegemony throughout the last century strikes Ireland’s youth as equally enigmatic and oppressive. 

Its mystery is due to distance; not temporally, but in terms of the radically different value-horizon through which we evaluate the world compared to our recent ancestors. 

This demiurge conductor of social Catholicism at the fore of Ireland’s stage was struck down in the latter half of the last century by a rag-tag group of activists that spoke truth to power – our Light Bringers, our Lucifer, our Morning Star. 

With the fall of Catholicism we the Irish can now enjoy: Fetish porn on demand, mentally-stagnating Marvel movies, West African drill rap in North County Dublin, Fake tan, Gay Neoliberal Technocracy ad infinitum, a free one-for-all voucher after your first abortion, oh….and who can forget the swarm of Brazilian Deliveroo drivers? If not for our brave immigrants (cheap labour) who would deliver the processed food to Paddy to gorge on while watching Netflix?

The Need for Historical Revisionism 

In order to demystify our conception of the last century, it is imperative that Irish Nationalists adopt a revisionist and critical approach, specifically in relation to Catholic hegemony, its decline, and its overcoming by Liberal Ireland. 

The need for revisionism exists independent of religious orientation – it’s irrelevant whether one is a Catholic, Pagan, or Atheist. Without this anti-Catholic mythos undergirding it, the edifice of Modern Ireland would be weakened substantially. No matter the scandal or malicious policy, Liberalism can always point to Catholic Ireland and say: “at least we’re not like the Church”.

Revisionism must be founded on the understanding that history is not merely a collection of empirical facts, but rather narratives about these facts; narratives that are always intertwined with power relations.

An empirical claim is as relevant to the perpetuation or undermining of a historical narrative as the way that fact is framed by the narrator. Relevant too is the Narrator – do they have an interest in framing a fact in a particular way? 

Our chattering class of journalists, NGO employees, and other surreptitious system-enforcers have an interest in upholding the view that Catholic Ireland was an intellectual wasteland, hostile to the cultivation of the intellect. 

When scrutinised this claim collapses. If one compares the zenith of Liberal Ireland’s educated class to the best minds produced in Catholic Ireland, it is transparent that the latter produced more impressive theorists. In fact, it is difficult to think of any modern Irish thinkers of worth.

Fr Fahey: A Brief Overview

In the context of 20^th century Ireland, one such figure whose position as a theorist subverts Liberal Ireland’s claims about supposed Catholic anti-intellectualism is Fr. Denis Fahey. Born in 1883, Fahey was an Irish priest notable for his political agitation and lobbying efforts. 

He graduated from the Royal University with a degree in civil and constitutional history, political economy, and general jurisprudence; he received a first class honours, finishing top of his course. 

By the time of his death, he had written close to twenty books on topics as diverse as Usury, the Russian Revolution, and even farming. Fr Fahey’s early educational achievements and the sheer range of topics he wrote about are a testament to his intellect and capacity for genuine scholarly inquiry. 

This causes obvious problems for Liberal Ireland’s account of Catholic Ireland. Specifically, their claim that Catholic political power was marked by a dearth of intellectual activity. When approaching Fahey, modern critics cannot simply ignore the voluminous theoretical work he produced.

Would it be possible for a dilletante like Blindboy to write a book which approached Fahey’s scholarship in terms of its rigour, scope, and depth? The thought strikes lucid men as absurd. 

A number of early periods molded Fahey’s worldview. He experienced the anti-clerical policies of Pierre Waldeck Rousseau first hand during his brief sojourn in France. In 1908, Fahey was in Rome studying at the Gregorian University. This was a significant period, intellectually speaking, in the Church’s history with a turn towards reaction. Pope Pius X’s 1907 Papal Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis was the catalyst which sparked a Campaign of anti-Modernism during his stay. 

Fr. Edward Cahill was also a major influence on Fahey throughout his intellectual development. A contemporary and friend of Fahey, Fr. Cahill established a study circle known as An Ríoghacht in 1926, its aim being to promote Catholic social principles. 

Like Fahey, Cahill was an intellectual titan whose learnedness is an uncomfortable fact for contemporary scholars who would happily jump at the opportunity to downplay intellectual life in Catholic Ireland. 

Under Cahill, An Ríoghacht was vocal in their opposition to Usury. They sent a delegation to the Irish Banking Commission (1934 -1938) to advocate for monetary reforms – the establishment of a National Bank in place of the private banking system. Fahey was very supportive of these proposals. In later years he would write a book on the modern usurious banking system. In ‘Money Manipulation and the Social Order’, Fahey argues for the abandonment of the Gold-standard. 

In their dialogue with Jesuit scholar Fr. Edward Coyne, members of An Ríoghacht contended that the policies they advocated were akin to those policies which generated economic success in Antonio Salazar’s Portugal. Salazar’s Estado Novo (New State) was admired internationally by Catholics and men of the Right due to its basis in Catholic social teaching. Salazar’s Corporatist economic system drew inspiration from the anti-Capitalist and anti-Communist Papal Encyclicals Rerum Novarum (Leo XIII, 1891) and Quadragesimo anno (Pius XI, 1931). 

It should also be noted that many of An Ríoghacht’s proposals would form the basis of the republican Clann na Poblachata’s economic policies – Sean MacBride was close with members of An Ríoghacht and sympathetic to their beliefs. 

Passing the Torch

Cahill passed away in 1941. With his passing An Ríoghacht re-orientated in a more mainstream direction; there was a shift away from the explicit anti-Masonic and antisemitic stance taken by the group under Cahill. 

In response, Fahey established Maria Duce in 1942 to fill the gap. Initially founded as a study circle, Maria Duce became a potent force on the Irish political landscape during the 1940s. 

It was a highly secretive organisation, with varying estimates regarding membership size. Mostly centred in Dublin, its members were typically middle class civil servants and small business owners.

Maria Duce had a 6 point programme which distilled its most important objectives in a succinct form. While it acknowledged religious tolerance, it asserted the Catholic Church as the one true church and called on all nations to convert to Catholicism. The group also stressed the importance of conserving Christian marriage, a proper Catholic education, and the reformation of Ireland’s monetary system along anti-usurious lines. 

Maria Duce and Article 44

It is well known that Archbishop John McQuaid advised Éamon de Valera in the drafting of Bunreacht na hÉireann. What is forgotten is that McQuaid sought the aid of Fr. Denis Fahey. Unfortunately, relations between de Valera and Fahey became strained, and the latter likely had little to no influence during the drafting stage. 

Fahey’s Maria Duce took issue with Article 44 regarding the religious nature of the state Bunreacht na hÉireann. In 1949 they began a campaign to amend the article which acknowledged the special position of the Catholic Church – Article 44 has since been amended by ‘Fifth Amendment of the Constitution Act’ and the special position of the Catholic church has been removed. 

In place of the recognition of the Catholic Church’s special position, Maria Duce proposed that “article 44 be so amended as to conform to the social rights of Christ the king as outlined in the authentic teaching of the papal encyclicals”. Only the recognition of the Catholic Church as the one true Church would suffice. 

Maria Duce sent countless petitions to members of the Government pressuring them to come out in support of their proposals to amend Article 44. In 1949, John A. Costello received a petition which had been signed by 800 people. 

Their vocal support for the amendment of Article 44 made Maria Duce increasingly unpopular among secular and ecclesiastical authorities, and likely consigned them to the periphery of Irish society in the years following the campaign. 

Seán South and Libido Dominandi 

Maria Duce was mostly a Dublin-centred organisation, but one of its most famous members was the Limerickman and IRA volunteer Seán South. South, a hardline Catholic nationalist himself was an avid reader of Fahey, a member of Maria Duce, and even the founder of their Limerick branch. 

South opposed the Americanisation of Ireland which was occurring through the culture distortion of American cultural exports: chiefly Hollywood. Men such as South who opposed Hollywood’s cultural produce are typically castigated as puritans, plagued with a supposed pathological aversion to modern culture. 

However, this is premised on the naïve liberal assumption that politics can be bracketed away from the rest of cultural life – in other words, that there are areas of societal life which are a-political. The propagation of subversive values through the aesthetic form is political; as is the rightful censorship of that artistic product. 

Hollywood was always fraught with political machinations by different groups vying for control. Dr. E Michael Jones, with his usual insightfulness, noted that the Catholic Church prohibited soft-core pornography in Hollywood through the Legion of Decency’s censorship code. Their control of Hollywood ended with the 1964 film ‘The Pawn Broker’, which bypassed the Production Code; notable for being one of the first films to feature nudity and a homosexual character. 

The sexualisation of film was not inevitable. Sexuality in film was prohibited and later that prohibition was overturned. Both the prohibition and the repeal of that prohibition were the acts of men. Men who formed groups around collective agendas and interests. These men had addresses, families, and homes. This could’ve been prevented. Read ‘Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation as a Form of Political Control’ by Dr. E Michael Jones. 

South was not solely fixated on the topic of American cultural distortion, he also agreed with many of Fahey’s claims regarding Freemasonry. South believed that a conspiracy of international Freemasons was to blame for the cultural sewer leaking out of America’s gaping orophus: Hollywood

South is the perfect counter-example to left-Republicans who assert the pseudo-historical and too frequently debunked claim that Irish Republicanism is an inherently left wing tradition. 

The Divine Programme and its Negation

Fahey’s beliefs formed the basis of the Maria Duce. Due to the sheer volume of his writing, it is a challenge to summarise his thought. Put simply, Fahey posited that a divine programme was instantiated by Jesus Christ when he walked the Earth. The view of Christ as Logos (reason and order in the universe) is an orthodox (with a small ‘o’) view among Christians of most denominations. 

Fahey was a deeply historical thinker. For him, history was the “account of the acceptance or rejection of our Lord’s programme for order’. Following from this foundation, Fahey concluded that 13th century Europe was the epoch which came closest to approximating this divine programme. For Fahey, the crowning jewel of this era was the guild system. The guilds were the application of the “doctrine of human solidarity in Christ to economic affairs”. 

Fahey translated Godefroid Kurth’s ‘Workingmen’s Guilds of the Middle Ages’ into English. This work presents the guild system in a positive manner, stressing the dignity that labour enjoyed under it; Kurth contrasts this with the degeneration of the worker to the station of a destitute proletarian which has occurred since the advent of Laissez-Faire Capitalism. It must be remembered that it was he French Liberal Revolutionaries who passed the Chapelier Law in 1791 which destroyed the guild system in France 

If the 13^th century was man’s apotheosis according to Fahey’s conception of history, the following centuries are a regression, if not a disaster. Fahey was an arch-Reactionary. He viewed the Protestant Reformation, the Renaissance, the French Revolution, and the Bolshevik revolution as the march of man away from Christ’s divine programme and eternal order. 

There was an underlying spiritual conflict which undergirded the exoteric conflict raging before men’s eyes. On one side was the Mystical Body of Christ (Roman Catholic Church) which represented divine order and truth on earth. On the other side were the forces of Naturalism. 

By Naturalism Fahey refers to “the attitude of mind which denies the reality of the Divine Life of Grace and of our Fall therefrom by Original Sin…We must combat that mentality and proclaim the Rights of God.”. In other words, any ideology or movement which denies the central tenants of the Christian faith. 

Bolshevism, Anarchism, hyper-Individualism, Atheism, Deism, Illuminism, and Libertinism are all naturalist belief systems which deny metaphysics, the resurrection, and our fall from the Garden of Eden.

Organised Naturalism’s Founding Mythos 

While many Catholics condemn these revolutions, Fahey is somewhat distinct in his assertion that there has been a consistent and centuries-long organised naturalist plot to overthrow the Church. 

Fahey argues that this Luciferian programme has been chiefly represented by Freemasonry and other secret societies since at least the 18^th century, if not earlier. Such a claim would be considered by most to be the wild and irresponsible assertion of a paranoid conspiracy theorist. 

However, when honest scholarship is undertaken in relation to the question of Secret Societies and their impact on European History since the enlightenment, the inevitable conclusion one comes to is that enlightenment and post-enlightenment revolutionary activity is inextricably bound to secret societies. 

Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism by Abbé Augustin Barruel is a multi-volume work detailing the connection between organised secret societies, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. 

Baurrel asserts that lodge initiates are not revealed the true origin of Freemasonry until they reach the ‘Rose Cross’ (Rosicrucian) degree. Upon reaching this degree, the initiate is informed that Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Templars, cursed the monarchies of Europe and the Catholic Church just prior to his execution under orders of Philippe le Bel, the King of France. To be a Freemason is to avenge Molay through the destruction of Throne and Alter, the dual pillars of the Medieval World. 

Baurrell was subject to intense criticism for this claim. However, the prominent Freemason Albert Pike’s description of the 18^th degree of the Rose Cross confirms Baurrel’s claim regarding Molay as impetus for Freemasonic revolutionary activity.

Whether Molay actually cursed the churches and monarchies of Europe is irrelevant. What matters is that men acted and may continue to act on this belief. 

How do we know that Freemasons act on this belief? Firstly, it is their founding myth which is formalised in the degree structure. Secondly, there has been a consistent history of Masonic involvement in anti-Clerical and anti-Monarchical agitation 

That the 18^th degree is called the Rose Cross is of some significance. The Rose Cross is an allusion to the Rosicrucians, a 17^th century secret society which was especially prominent in Britain. Rosicrucianism is a syncretic blend of the Jewish Kabbalah, Hermeticism, alchemy, and Christian esotericism 

The Rosicrucian-Freemason connection through the 18^th degree of Freemasonry confirms Fahey’s contention that there has been a centuries long struggle engaged by the forces of political naturalism against the Church. 

It is also important to note that the Rosicrucian Francis Bacon is the founder of modern Science through his repudiation of Aristotelian teleology in his work Novum Organum Scientiarum. Aristotle’s teleological conception was the view of the Medieval scholastics. Fahey would’ve viewed Bacon’s anti-Aristotelianism as a manifestation of the Masonic-drive to de-legitimise Christian order. 

Masonic Influence on Modernity

Now the founding myth of Masonry has been exposed – it is now necessary to partially document their actions over the last few centuries.

Most of the American founding fathers were Freemasons. Benjamin Franklin was a Freemason notable for his ties to prominent French Freemasons such as Voltaire. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were also Freemasons. In fact, Washington expressed concern that the actions of Adam Weishaupt’s ‘Illuminati’ would create a bad image for Freemasonry. In response, Jefferson praised the Illuminati’s philosophy.

In France, Masonry was especially influential. Men such as Voltaire come to mind when one thinks of Masonry during that period. The most important French Freemason in the 18^th century was the King’s cousin, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. He was also the Grand Master of the Grand Orient de France. The Duke, who later changed his name to Philippe Égalité, was cardinal in funding and perpetuating the French Revolution. 

English masonry is an area of contention among those who inquire into the relationship between revolution and Freemasonry. The progenitors of the Freemason conspiracy theory, Abbé Augustin Barruel and John Robison, both asserted the innocence of the United Grand Lodge (the “English” masonic lodge). Enda Delaney contends that Fahey and Cahill made the elementary mistake of conflating revolutionary Grand Orient (continental) Masonry and the United Grand Lodge variant. 

However, the English Masons are not innocent by any means. Grand Orient masonry was founded by English Masons. The delegitimisation of the Medieval worldview was carried out, in part, by the English Rosicrucian Francis Bacon. As well as this, figures from continental lodges went to Britain to spread revolutionary ideas during the 1770s – Cagliostro popularised Continental Masonry among British Princes and Dukes. 

Kerry Bolton vindicates Denis Fahey’s thesis in his summation of British Masonry in the later 18^th century: “It becomes evident that English Freemasonry was very much involved in political and occultist intrigues, despite the claims of innocence for English Masonry”. 

Other Nations which suffered from intrigues by secret societies include: Mexico in the later 19^th and early 20^th century, The Ottoman Empire in the early 20^th century, Germany in the 18^th and 19^th century, Russia since Peter the Great, Italy throughout the Risorgimento, Portugal during the Lady of Fatima era, Spain prior to Franco, Portugal before Salazar’s reign, and so on.

It is worth pointing out that the Grand Orient Lodge openly brags and celebrates its revolutionary machinations over the past few centuries, proudly citing Bakunin as an example. 

Conclusion: Fr Fahey as a Counternarrative to Liberal Ireland

Fahey’s life and works fly in the face of the official account of Catholic Ireland as an intellectual wasteland. As a theorist he’s unparalleled by any contemporary faux-intellectual that Liberal Ireland can adduce. His attack on Freemasonry is vindicated by genuine scholarship. 

As a man he deserves respect for standing by his convictions; he was not a mere subservient lapdog of Ireland’s elites. He made enemies and stood by his beliefs, even at the risk of alienation by secular and ecclesiastical power. 

His books can be found easily on the Internet Archive, download them before they’re removed.

I would strongly encourage every Irishman to read and contemplate the great works of Fr. Denis Fahey, the man who stood defiantly in the face of global subversion.