Australian Dictionary of Biography entry:
Samuel John Austin Sheehy (1827–1910)
by Mary Shanahan

This article was published in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 6, 1976, online in 2006.

Samuel John Austin Sheehy (1827-1910), Benedictine priest, was born on 1 October 1827 in Cork, County Cork, Ireland, son of John Sheehy, carpenter and builder, and his wife Harriett, née Roche. On 19 October 1838 he reached Sydney with his parents, bounty immigrants in the Magistrate. He studied at St Mary's seminary and in May 1845 entered the priory attached to the cathedral. He received the Benedictine habit on 2 August 1849, made his religious profession on 5 May 1851 and was ordained by Bishop Davis in St Mary's Cathedral on 6 March 1852.

After his ordination Sheehy was in charge of St Mary's seminary day school where he taught W. B. Dalley. In 1858 he became chaplain for Darlinghurst and Cockatoo Island gaols and in 1861 president of Lyndhurst College and vicar-general in succession to Abbot Gregory. A fellow of St John's College within the University of Sydney, in 1864 he was named parish priest of the Sacred Heart Church, Darlinghurst, and was sometime joint treasurer of St Vincent's Hospital. In 1866 he was appointed bishop of Bethesda in partibus infidelium and auxiliary to Archbishop Polding, but Cardinal Barnabò, the prefect of Propaganda College, asked Polding to defer the consecration until Sheehy had been cleared of charges of negligence, of 'having connived at the apostasies of certain monks' and of having been seen leaving his room 'valde ebria'. Sheehy resigned 'at the first sign of any opposition', but Polding claimed that the calumniators' plans were to prevent Sheehy from succeeding him; he asked Rome to appoint him to Armidale: 'I confess that since all my suffragan bishops are Irish, it would be very pleasant for me to have at least one, who, even though he is Irish, has spent his time of education and religious life at my side and in the work of the mission'.

Sheehy was not consecrated but he remained vicar-general until the arrival in 1873 of Archbishop Vaughan. He had been appointed at a time when discontent with the Benedictine regime was at its height, and he trod cautiously. Opposition came from his close association with the English superiors of the mission and not from any personal animosity. Consulted by Polding on the Benedictine community, in 1869 he concluded that, as there was little prospect of getting fresh subjects and great difficulty in training them, it would be better to break up the institute and get the professed religious secularized; Vaughan followed this advice in 1877.

Sheehy was appointed to Windsor in 1873 and to Wollongong in 1885. That year Cardinal Moran bestowed on him the honorary title of vicar-general. In 1888 he moved to Ryde and in 1907 to Waverley. Although he was secularized with the few remaining Benedictines, he remained faithful to his early calling and merged into the Australian scene. He died of senile decay at Randwick on 14 September 1910 and was buried in the Field of Mars cemetery. His estate was sworn for probate at £30.

Select Bibliography

H. N. Birt, Benedictine Pioneers in Australia, vols 1-2 (Lond, 1911)
M. Shanahan, Out of Time, Out of Place (Canberra, 1970)
Roman Catholic Archives (Sydney).

Citation details
Mary Shanahan, 'Sheehy, Samuel John Austin (1827–1910)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/sheehy-samuel-john-austin-4567/text7495, published first in hardcopy 1976, accessed online 3 July 2025.

This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 6, (Melbourne University Press), 1976.

Reproduced by permission of Australian Dictionary of Biography. Original biography: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/sheehy-samuel-john-austin-4567.

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T.W. Campbell, The Priests of the Diocese of Armidale: A Necrology, Braddon ACT, 2005:
Sheehy, Samuel Augustine (Fr Austin) OSB

Born in Cork 1 October 1827 he arrived in Sydney with his parents in July 1838. He was educated at St Mary's Seminary, Sydney from January 1839 until its close at the end of 1844. He entered the Benedictine monastery, Sydney on 9 May 1845, was professed on 11 July 1848, then ordained priest on 6 March 1852 by Bishop Davis, Co-adjutor to Archbishop Polding. He was given charge of St Mary's Day School, a pupil being William Bede Dalley, who became a significant Catholic public figure in Sydney. He was president of Lyndhurst College 1861 to 1864, vicar general of the Archdiocese until the arrival of Archbishop Vaughan, than appointed priest in charge, Windsor. After 12 years he was appointed to Wollongong, then three years later to Ryde. Archbishop Polding appointed him as Administrator of the Diocese of Armidale until a bishop was appointed (1863 to 1869). In 1866 he was appointed Assistant Bishop to Archbishop Polding, but declined the appointment. In September 1869 he presided as Administrator of the Armidale diocese at a meeting in Armidale, at which the decision was made to start construction of the new cathedral. On his death he was one of the two priests still receiving a stipend from the New South Wales Government, granted to all ministers of religion at the time of the clear separation of church and state in 1859 (Fr Patrick Birch, Queanbeyan, outlived him). He died at his residence at Randwick on 14 September 1910, and was buried at the Field of Mars cemetery, Ryde.
(Sources: FJ 22 Sep 1910 pp 9 & 18, Farrell, Doody, H N Birt, Benedictine Pioneers in Australia, London, Herbert & Daniel, 1911 (2 vols), pp ii 329, 330, MDHC A-Z S39).

(Reproduced by permission of Tom Campbell.)