This biography looks at one of Ireland"s most powerful figures who became effectively the ecclesiastical Prime Minister of a clerical state. The book examines his years as Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, and his subsequent amassing of religious, political and social power which he exercised with unscrupulous severity. So much so that he was effectively the co-author with De Valera of the Irish constitution. The text also tells of his admiration for J. Edgar Hoover, and how he built up a vigilante system that spied on politicians, workers and students, doctors and lawyers, nuns and nurses, soldiers and trade unionists. This power was used to build up a Catholic-dominated state in which Protestants, Jews and feminists were not welcome. Nor was intellectual freedom to be allowed even to Catholics in the battle against atheistic communism.