Cantwell, James (1844–1905), catholic priest, was born at Loughcappel, Killusty, Co. Tipperary, probably in February 1844, son of John Cantwell, who farmed 155 acres there, and his wife, Alley (née Walsh). An indication of his family's wealth is the statement that his mother gave £50 annually to the poor of her district. An uncle, Walter Cantwell (1812?–1878), was also a priest and was successively dean of Cashel and archdeacon of Fethard. After training for the priesthood at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, James Cantwell was ordained in 1868 and appointed a curate at Fethard. Eight years later he moved as curate to Thurles (seat of the archbishop of Cashel and one of his mensal parishes) and in January 1878 was promoted to be administrator there.
Encouraged by the archbishop, Thomas William Croke (qv), Cantwell soon emerged (1880) as a strong supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell (qv). He was one of four Tipperary priests who attended the convention held in Dublin by Parnell to consider the land bill passing through parliament (April 1881). Cantwell chaired the meeting that promulgated the no-rent manifesto six months later, though most priests (Croke included) considered a national strike against all rents to be too revolutionary and immoral. And unlike most priests, he tolerated the Ladies’ Land League. When Parnell revived the Land League as the Irish National League at a public meeting in Dublin (17 October 1882) it was Cantwell whom he invited to second the adoption of the new league's programme. He played a leading role in the Tipperary Newspaper Publishing Company floated by Croke towards the end of 1882. Cantwell, exceptionally for a priest, spoke up for urban labourers and artisans: he invited the agent of Lord Dunsandle, owner of Thurles, to inspect the back-street hovels there (1880); and he helped to form an association of boot- and shoemakers in the town (1881). But he was less well disposed to Fenians, refusing when Charles Joseph Kickham (qv) died in 1882 to allow his body into Thurles cathedral, though in September 1885 he welcomed a lecture by Michael Davitt (qv) to the Young Ireland Society at Thurles. After that date his name no longer appears prominently. Why he moved in 1885 to Ballingarry, a rural parish and his final post, is unclear.
Cantwell contributed to the Irish Ecclesiastical Record (3rd ser., iii, 1882) two articles on confraternities, which he saw as an antidote to ‘such frivolous distractions’ as light literature. When he died, on 4 December 1905, he was a vicar forane and canon. He was a good example of a political priest in a diocese where the catholic clergy were highly politicised. A brother, Walter Cantwell (1845?–1917), was a curate at Tipperary.