The Vatican criticised - Taoiseach speaks for the majority

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny’s Dáil attack on the Vatican was one of the finest moments in this Republic’s struggle to assert its relatively newfound independence.

That the powerful speech was so very overdue, that it came from such a conservative and unexpected quarter made it even more moving and inspiring than it might otherwise have been.

It will, in time, be seen in the same light, and be given the same import, as President Éamon de Valera’s response to Churchill’s 1945 bitter attack on Irish neutrality during World War II.