IRELAND
The Irish Times
VINCENT BROWNE
AN ITALIAN monsignor visited a drapery store in Rome in early March 1923 and ordered warm underwear, most likely long johns and woolly vests.
This suspicious event became known to the Italian press which correctly deduced the monsignor was about to go to Ireland as an envoy from Pope Pius XI – suspicious because it was unusual, even for monsignors, to purchase long johns and woolly vests in early March in drapery shops in Rome just as the glorious Roman summer was to arrive.
The monsignor was Salvatore Luzio and his arrival in Ireland on March 19th, 1923, was greeted by the then government and by the Irish Catholic hierarchy with dismay. This was because the Cumann nGaedheal government regarded his arrival as menacing, the hierarchy regarded his arrival as meddlesome and because the monsignor did not bother making contact with the government or the hierarchy for several weeks after his arrival, choosing first to meet the leaders of the Anti-Treatyites at a secret location.
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