Abstract
This thesis is a social history which investigates the role of the New Zealand Tablet as a reflection of colonial Catholic society, and its application as a tool of social control in the years 1873-1895. It includes a history of the paper's establishment and development under the direction of its founder editor, the Right Rev. Dr. Patrick Moran, the first Catholic Bishop of the diocese of Dunedin in the provincial capital of Otago, New Zealand.
This thesis focuses on Moran's views on issues of the day including social attitudes and values of Irish Catholicism which survived relocation through migration, Catholic women in the church and society, and changes in advertising and leisure activities. Moran was renowned for his energetic building programme and his unsuccessful struggle for state funding for Catholic schools, both of which have been more extensively documented elsewhere.