Ralph McInerny

Ralph Matthew McInerny (February 24, 1929 – January 29, 2010) was an American author and philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame. McInerny's most popular mystery novels featured Father Dowling, and was later adapted into the Father Dowling Mysteries television show, which ran from 1987 to 1991.

He sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms of Harry Austin, Matthew FitzRalph, Ernan Mackey, Edward Mackin and Monica Quill.

McInerny wrote his PhD dissertation entitled The Existential Dialectic of Soren Kierkegaard under Professor Charles De Koninck at Laval University in Quebec, Canada.

He was Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Jacques Maritain Center, and Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He taught there from 1955 until his retirement in 2009.

McInerny was also a Fulbright Scholar, receiving educational funds from the Fulbright Commission Belgium. He served as president of the Metaphysical Society of America in 1993.

McInerny's brother Dennis, also a philosophy professor, believes that his brother's greatest legacy is not to be found in his novels, but in his adherence to scholastic and Thomistic beliefs.

McInerny was a Catholic. He attended Nazareth Hall Preparatory Seminary for high school. He married the former Constance Kunert January 3, 1953, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She preceded him in death on May 18, 2002. The McInernys had four daughters and three sons, one of whom, Michael, predeceased Ralph.

McInerny died of esophageal cancer on January 29, 2010.