56 Monsignor James Meany, THE CATHOLIC WEEKLY and 2SM Bridget Griffen-Foley* By the new millennium, Monsignor James Meany (1879-1953) had made his way onto the list of possibilities for what was colloquially known as a ‘missing persons’ volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB). In 2001 I was invited to write the 750-word entry on Meany, described as ‘founder 2SM “Catholic Weekly”’, for what was now entitled the ADB Supplement. 1 The Irish-born Meany was best- known for four things: Diocesan Inspector of Schools in Sydney; parish priest of St Mark’s, Drummoyne; founder and first managing director of Australia’s only Catholic radio station, 2SM; and chairman of the Catholic Weekly . My research on Meany and 2SM would provide a foundation for my chapter on religious broadcasting in Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio, 2 a particularly challenging chapter to undertake as there had been little sustained or published work on the history of religious broadcasting (particularly commercial broadcasting) in Australia. 3 In this article I present an overview of Meany’s involvement with the press and radio from the 1920s to the 1950s. James Meany was born on 17 May 1879 at Knockasnuff, Blarney, County Cork, the son of John Meany, a farmer and publican. He was educated at the National School in Blarney, Presentation Brothers’ College in Cork, and St Colman’s College in Fermoy. Meany was ordained at All Hallows’ College, Dublin, on 24 June 1904. 4 Father Meany arrived, as a 25-year-old, in Sydney in November 1904, serving 1 Published as Bridget Griffen-Foley, ‘James Meany’, Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) Supplement (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005), pp. 271-72. 2 Bridget Griffen-Foley, Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009), ch. 6. 3 The main radio studies to appear are: William B. Aliprandi, God and Mammon: The Catholic Church and Commercial Broadcasting in Australia, EdD thesis, Cornell University, 1974; J. L. F. Buchner, Religious Broadcasting in Australia, MA (Hons) thesis, School of English and Linguistics, Macquarie University, 1989; Patrick William Godman, Religious Organization and Broadcasting in Australia 1923 to 1943, MA thesis, University of Queensland, 1990; Julia Croft, From Mainstream to Multicultural: ABC Religious Programming 1932-1992, BA thesis, Griffith University, 1992; Alison M. Healey, Spirit and Substance: Religious Broadcasting on ABC Radio, 1941-91 , PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 1993. 4 J. A. Meany file, Sydney Archdiocesan Archives (SAA). *Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley is the Director of the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University. Her books include Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio (UNSW Press, 2009). This article is refereed. Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society 34 (2013), 56-69