Rev Michael Patterson
Title:
Rev
First Name:
Michael
Middle Names:
J
Preferred Name:
Surname:
Patterson
Order:
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Co Waterford
Country of Birth:
Ireland
Date of Ordination:
Place of Ordination:
Country of Ordination:
Ordination Diocese:
Seminary:
Date of Death:
Place of Death:
Country of Death:
Australia
Date of Burial:
Place of Burial:
Southport QLD
Country of Burial:
Australia
Find A Grave URL:
Appointments Table
Diocese | Place | Role | Start Day | Start Month | Start Year | End Day | End Month | End Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brisbane | Maryborough | 1890 | 1891 | Fr Denis Long, Pioneer and Early Priests | |||||
| Brisbane | Southport | 1892 | Jul | 1903 | Fr Denis Long, Pioneer and Early Priests |
Biographical Notes
Denis M. Long, Pioneer and Early Priests, Archdiocese of Brisbane, Deceased or retired by 1929, 2021, p 111:
Rev Dr Michael Patterson
Dr Michael Patterson was born in the diocese of Waterford in Ireland on 25 February 1836. The son of prosperous merchant the proprietor of businesses in Dungarvan and Clonmel, Michael chose to be a priest and was educated at the Irish College in Rome where Archbishop Dunne was a fellow student.
Ordained on 1857, he served in several city parishes in Dublin and was parish priest of Blanchardstown and Enniskerry in the diocese of Dublin. Falling into delicate health, he was ordered to Australia, arriving in Sydney, during the absence of Archbishop Dunne in 1890. He was appointed by His Eminence Cardinal Moran (who was then administering the archdiocese for Archbishop Dunne) to the curacy at Maryborough.(1)
Rev Dr Neil Byrne relates more interesting facts about Dr Patterson's move to this diocese:
Immediately after Dunne's departure for Ireland in 1890, Cardinal Moran passed on to Brisbane the elderly Dr Michael Patterson who had already been rejected by the Archbishop of Melbourne. Patterson was fleeing his bankrupt Dublin parish where, it was rumoured, a failed commercial speculation had resulted in the loss of seventy-five thousand pounds in a single stroke. Dunne allowed Patterson to remain in his diocese but the priest's neglect and impoverishment of the Southport mission soon earned it a reputation as the most corpse-like parish in the diocese.(2)
Dr Patterson served as curate to Fr John O'Reilly in Maryborough for nearly two years, 1890/1891. Early in 1892 Southport was excised from Beaudesert to become a separate mission. Archbishop Dunne appointed Dr Patterson as the first priest-in-charge. During his eleven years in that parish Dr Patterson purchased a fine site at Beenleigh on to which he moved the Yatala church, a former Masonic Hall purchased by Fr Scortechini in December 1875. A church at Upper Coomera, erected on land purchased in Fr Scortechini's time, was serviced by Dr Patterson. He also purchased a fine site in the middle of Southport for a church and convent. In 1903 he commenced the erection of a new church there.(3) Before the church was opened Dr Patterson died 31 July 1903.(4)
His curates during his pastorate were Fr Richard Walsh and Fr John F McCarthy.
His last illness seized him at Burleigh Heads. In Southport he was attended with devoted care by his curate Fr McCarthy and by the Sisters of Mercy. A Requiem Mass was celebrated for the repose of the deceased soul on Saturday morning and the interment took place in the Southport cemetery in the afternoon.(5)
The headstone erected over his grave was damaged by vandals. Part of the monument is now in the Brisbane Archdiocesan Archives.
Footnotes
1. Age, Brisbane, 8 Aug 1903.
2. Neil J Byrne, Robert Dunne – Archbishop of Brisbane, 1991, p. 172.
3. Fr Jeremiah O'Leary, Southport Parish.
4. Age, op. cit.
5. Catholic Press, Sydney, 6 Aug 1903, p. 20.
Reproduced by permission of Fr Denis Long.