Venerable Matt Talbot, Chronic Alcoholic

[1856–1925] ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH: June 7

By 1856, the year Matthew Talbot was born, the population of Dublin stood at a quarter million, of whom sixty-four thousand fell into the general category of poor folk. Dublin in the mid-nineteenth century had some of the modern conveniences that were beginning to appear in Europe and the United States: city water systems; indoor toilets known as water closets, or at least outdoor privies for each house; and new housing designed to bring natural light and fresh air into every room.

In the poor parts of dear, dirty Dublin, however, these innovations were unknown. Water for cooking, drinking, and washing came from public fountains, which did not run twenty-four hours a day. Few places had privies, fewer still had water closets, so human waste was carried in buckets to be dumped somewhere outdoors. The houses themselves tended to be tenements crammed into narrow alleys and dank, sunless, airless courtyards.

The Talbot family never knew the grinding poverty of some of their neighbors: as a dockworker Charles Talbot brought home fifteen shillings a week, supplemented from time to time by a few extra shillings Elizabeth Talbot earned as a cleaning woman. She rarely had time to work outside the house, however. In twenty-five years of marriage Elizabeth Talbot gave birth to twelve children, nine of whom survived into adulthood. Matthew was the Talbots’ second child.

With the exception of the eldest son, John, all the Talbot men were heavy drinkers. In old age Pat Doyle, who had grown up with the Talbot children, recalled that once the Talbot boys were young men they went to pubs together with their father. “On Saturdays,” Doyle said, “when they’d all have a good drop in…they were a contrary lot. Mrs. Talbot had a hard time of it, trying to keep the peace.”

In fact, Matt did not wait for manhood to begin drinking. He was twelve the first time he stumbled home drunk. His father beat him, then got him a job at the docks where he could keep an eye on his son. But even at this young age Matt always found ways to get to a pub. When the Archdiocese of Dublin began the process of investigation into Matt’s life, two of his sisters, Maria and Susan, testified that he would sell his boots and shirt to get money for liquor. Pat Doyle remembered going on pilfering expeditions through the neighborhood with Matt to find small things they could sell to buy drink. In testimony before the canonization tribunal, Annie Johnson, Matt’s niece, said that when his money was gone her uncle would get drunk on credit. When he could get no more credit, he would steal. Once he stole an old homeless man’s fiddle and pawned it to buy liquor.

From the time he was twelve until he was twenty-eight, Matt Talbot was a chronic alcoholic. One Saturday evening he and his two youngest brothers, Philip and Joseph, walked to O’Meara’s pub on Dublin’s North Strand. They had no money, so they stood outside the door, waiting for friends to offer to buy them a drink. One acquaintance after another passed Matt by, but not one asked him in. To his brother Joe he said, “I am going home.”

His mother was surprised to see him come through the door early and sober. “I am going up to Holy Cross College,” he told her, “to take the pledge.” At that time in Ireland, anyone who resolved to give up drink took a solemn oath, or pledge, before a priest. Elizabeth Talbot was delighted but realistic. “If you don’t intend to keep it, don’t take it.”

At the college Matt told the officiating priest that he wanted to take the pledge for life. The priest, who had experience with alcoholics, suggested that Matt swear off drink for three months. If he could make it that far, then he could return to take a second pledge for a longer period, and so on.

While he was with the priest, Matt made his confession, his first in several years. The next morning he went to Sunday Mass, received Holy Communion, and began a new routine that he said kept him out of the pubs. Every morning he attended 5:00 A.M. Mass, then went to his job—he was a laborer at construction sites—arriving about 6:00 A.M. After quitting time he would walk to a church at some far corner of Dublin and remain there until it was time to go home for supper and bed.

Matt’s friends were astonished when he swore off the booze. As for Matt, he had a bad time during those first three months—so bad that he told his mother when the three months were up, he was going to start drinking again.

But he didn’t. At the end of those three months he returned to Holy Cross College to take another short-term pledge. How long these incremental pledges lasted we do not know. A woman named Catherine Carrick left a written statement that she served Matt Talbot “his last pint of porter before taking the life pledge.” Sadly, she didn’t include a date. But she did add that once, after Matt had sworn off alcohol, he stopped by the pub to see her. “He told me,” Carrick said, “he would never touch drink for his life.”

It was a marvel to all who knew him that Matt Talbot had given up the bottle. It was a wonder to him, too, one that he attributed entirely to the mercy of God and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. He began to consider how he could atone for his wasted, sinful years, and how he could grow closer to God. Matt took as his models the Irish saints from the early centuries of Christianity. They had spent long hours in prayer, passed most of the year fasting, slept on stone slabs with a rock for a pillow. Matt Talbot adopted all of these penitential practices. He prayed so often that his sister Maria said it seemed to her “he was never off his knees.” He slept on a wooden plank with a block of wood as his pillow. During Lent he lived on dry bread, a little fish, and unsweetened cocoa. To prepare for Christmas he gave up meat during Advent. His sister Susan said when Christmas morning came, Matt savored the steak she fried for his breakfast—the first piece of meat he had tasted in four weeks.

He adopted one other act of humiliation he considered particularly necessary: he paid off all the debts he owed to friends and coworkers who had bought him drinks, and he paid back the pub owners who had let him drink on credit. Several people bore witness that he scoured all the poorhouses of Dublin, trying to find the old man whose fiddle he stole so he could make restitution. He never found him.

Matt had a small circle of friends, and he was close to his family, particularly his sisters. He and his brothers drifted apart after he failed to convince them to give up, or least moderate, their heavy drinking. He lived with his mother until she died, then he rented a room, which he furnished in austere style with a bed, a table, and a chair. Since he had so few needs, he gave the bulk of his salary to charities, or to acquaintances and neighbors who were going through hard times. And every morning he was at the earliest Mass, usually arriving at the church before the doors had been unlocked.

In 1923 Matt suffered severe chest pains and was taken to Dublin’s Mater Misericordiae Hospital. He was diagnosed with tachycardia, an abnormally rapid heartbeat. No longer able to do the heavy lifting at construction sites, Matt received seven shillings a week from Ireland’s National Health Insurance. Even for someone who lived as simply as Matt, the disability payout was barely enough. Friends stopped by to press him to accept small gifts of cash, and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, one of Matt’s favorite charities, was now writing him checks.

June 7, 1925, was Trinity Sunday. Matt was hurrying to Mass at St. Savior’s Church on Dominick Street when he collapsed. Several passersby rushed to his aid, while a Mr. O’Donohoe, who owned a pub, ran for a priest. Matt died there on the sidewalk, surrounded by kind strangers.

The funeral was small. Matt’s sisters Maria and Susan and their families attended, and a few friends from work came, as did a handful of his fellow members of the Sodality of the Immaculate Conception. In life, Matt Talbot’s sanctity was known only to a select few. Since his death, his reputation for holiness has traveled around the world, but he is especially loved and admired by recovering alcoholics.