In early 1932, sectarian tensions rose with the alarm of the Unionist community as Éamon de Valera (a staunch Republican leader and Easter Rising veteran) assumed the premiership of Free State Ireland. Then, when the Church of Ireland announced plans to commemorate the coming of Saint Patrick to Ireland, a Catholic Cardinal commented publicly that "the Protestant church in Ireland, and the same is true anywhere else, is not only not the rightful representative of the early Irish church, but it is not even a part of the Church of Christ." This brought Protestant outrage pushing tensions to the breaking point and Loyalists responded in June 1932 by attacking Catholic pilgrims returning to Belfast on public transport from the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. Denouncements of Catholicism grew louder as the Loyalist summer marching season came closer. The situation was made worse by the fact that many of Northern Ireland's unemployed were in a state of privation and some were even starving.