Daniel Mannix (1864-1963) was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Melbourne for nearly half a century and an active force in Australian politics, especially in Victoria.

Daniel Mannix was born at Charleville in County Cork, Ireland, on March 4, 1864. He was ordained in 1890 at Maynooth, where he became successively junior professor of philosophy and professor of theology. The Irish bishops selected him as president in 1903, and it was during his tenure of this office that Maynooth acquired the status of a university college.

In 1912 Mannix was appointed titular archbishop of Pharsalus and coadjutor of Melbourne, and in 1917 he succeeded to the see. He quickly became the main spokesman in Australia for the Irish nationalist movement Sinn Fein. During World War I he campaigned openly alongside the Labour party against conscription for the armed forces, and by the end of the war he and the Catholics who looked to him for...