Irish Relief Fund, which provided financial support for the families of those shot or imprisoned by the British. When he left Australia in 1920, to visit Rome and the United States, the British government refused him permission to visit Ireland or British cities with large Irish populations, which resulted in an extended stay in Penzance. There was also a serious, though unsuccessful, move to prevent him returning to Australia. Mannix supported trade unionism but opposed militancy and strikes. In the 1920s he became outspoken in opposition to the Industrial Workers of the World and the Communist Party of Australia. On all matters of personal and sexual morality, he was a traditionalist and an upholder of the authority of the Church. In Melbourne, Mannix was the leader of the city's largest ethnic minority as well as a religious leader. From his palatial house, "Raheen", in Kew, Melbourne, he would daily walk to and from St Patrick's Cathedral, personally greeting any of his flock that he encountered. On official engagements he was chauffeured about in a large limousine. In 1920 he led an enormous St Patrick's Day parade with a guard of honour made up of Irish Australian winners of the Victoria Cross. After the Irish Free State was created in 1922, Mannix became less politically controversial and animosity to him gradually faded for the most part. From the 1930s he came to see Communism as the main threat to the church and he became increasingly identified with political conservatism. He was a strong supporter of Joseph Lyons, who left the Labor Party in 1931 and led the conservative United Australia Party in government from 1932 until 1939, although he continued to support Catholics in the Labor Party such as Arthur Calwell. Mannix's best-known protégé in his later years was B. A. Santamaria, a young Italian-Australian lawyer, whom Mannix appointed head of the national secretariat of Catholic Action in 1937. After 1941, Mannix authorised Santamaria to form the Catholic Social Studies Movement, known simply as "The Movement", to organise in the unions and defeat the Communists. "The Movement" was so successful in its efforts that by 1949 it had taken control of the Victorian branch of the Labor Party. Another associate was William Hackett SJ, a Jesuit priest from Ireland, who had been involved in the Irish Republic's struggle for independence from Britain before being posted to Australia. In 1951 the Liberal