James Cullen, SJ

Clongowes 1856-1861 I James Cullen, SJ

James Cullen, SJ (1841-1921), founder of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, was a native of New Ross, County Wexford, who attended Clongowes in 1856-61. He studied for the priesthood at Carlow College and was ordained for the diocese of Ferns in 1864. He first served as curate in Wexford, where he was active in the re-establishment of Catholic institutions and in combatting intemperance. His interest in the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius persuaded him to become a Jesuit, and after a period of study in Louvain he joined the order in 1883. Noted for his deep personal piety and strong organising ability, he was active in promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Virgin. In 1888 he began publication of the Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart. His greatest achievement, however, was in the promotion of temperance. Socially very aware, he saw excessive drinking as a major cause of deprivation and misery. He founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in the presbytery of the Jesuit Church at Gardiner Street, Dublin, in 1898. It was organised on a parish basis, but controlled by a Jesuit central directorate in Dublin. Members pledged to abstain from alcohol for life, and bore witness of their self-denial by wearing a Pioneer pin with an image of the Sacred Heart. The PTAA quickly grew into one of the largest temperance movements in the world, gaining 280,000 members in Cullen’s lifetime, a figure that had nearly doubled by the 1950s, when the movement was at its strongest. Cullen was a strong nationalist and linked the PTAA to the establishment of a better Ireland. He was active in Dublin’s inner city, where he promoted sodalities, religious leagues and social alternatives to pubs.