Newtown, Springwood, Lismore, Manly, etc, NSW

Fr T.J. Linane, From Abel to Zundolovich, Vol. 2: Biographies of Priests on the Australian Scene up to 1900, 1980, pp 105-106:

Cregan, Patrick Charles, Very Rev., D.D., Australian
Grand Contribution to Training Australian Priests
'Patsy', as his contemporaries knew him, or 'Dad' to Springwood students, was born at Mangrove Mountain, northern NSW, on 4 November 1868. His father, at least, was a native of Limerick. College studies were acquired at St. Joseph's, Hunter's Hill, and that august contributor to the ranks of the priesthood lays claim to Patsy being the first in the records. He was a contemporary of Fr. Treacy Boland's father, who worked for the Sydney Water Board for 50 years. It is to Fr. Boland that the writer is indebted for much of the information here given, but who makes the impossible plea "to give the first Springwood Rector a suitable panegyric in the A to Z list!" Patsy was enlisted for the Lismore Diocese and was sent to the Cistercians at Mount Melleray for his philosophy studies. Theology years were spent at All Hallows and Ordination was conferred there on 25 June 1893. After spending a year in the diocese of choice he transferred to Sydney. And so in the 1898 Directory we find him on the staff at St. Mary's Cathedral. This was during the exciting era of the Conningham-O'Haran case, but what Patsy thought of the nasty affair is not recorded. He was temporary administrator before being summoned to join the teaching staff at St. Patrick's College, Manly in 1904. Four years at that post no doubt provided a fitting experience for a responsibility that Cardinal Moran was to thrust on his broad shoulders when the Springwood property was purchased in 1908. It can be assumed that Moran knew something of the tough, mountain environment of Patsy's boyhood years, and gauged his physical stamina and sense of reliability. Springwood, meant at first to be a powerhouse of the foreign missionary priesthood, required such a man who would literally hew his way through the bushland of the Blue Mountains "with a blade for a Splendid Cause". Springwood was destined to become, not exactly what Moran envisaged, a training centre for a native priesthood — a supplier and caring sister for Manly that had opened its doors in 1889. After a year of hard work and planning, Patsy was able to invite the Cardinal to a formal opening on 11 October 1909. On the 1st March in the following year he was on the doorstep to welcome the first 23 recruits, and so began the 'Splendid Cause" which has persisted until 1977.

The writer, influenced by the reading of Manly Annuals and by traditional accounts, has always imagined the pioneering Rector to be a rugged, unrelenting character — imbued with a great devotion to his task; but perhaps it would be better to allow a student of the pioneering era, Fr. Treacy Boland, take up the description; "... He was respected and, of course, feared by the students. His appearance in the classroom during study hours was a terrifying experience. He trusted his Prefects to keep order and appeared only when the noise and 'mucking up' penetrated his office sanctum. There were threats of being "put outside the white gate". (A five-barred timber gate marked the boundary of the College property). Shortly after, during recreation, he would gaily emerge from his office to pick out the offenders and accompany them on a walk. It was a classic example of: "Let not the sun go down ..." God rest him! His 'squash' classes on Sunday morning, as he consulted his weighty Webster, gave us a respect for words and language ..."

He was made an honorary D.D. in December 1920. And by 1923 standards, when the inner suburbs were as yet immune from grime and noisy traffic, Newtown parish was a fitting recognition for services rendered — with the added honour of being made a Diocesan Consultor. But the recognition that Patsy would have appreciated more than any other was the respect of the scores of men that he initiated in priestly ways in his 13 years as Rector of St. Columba's. Manly Annual, 1934, and the Catholic Press 23.12.1920, tell the rest of the story. He died after a long illness in St. Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst, on 2 July 1934, at the age of 65, and rests among the 'greats' in the Sydney priesthood at Rookwood. St. Peter would hardly have threatened to put him outside the great "white gate".
(Footprints, Vol. 3, No. 2)
Information: Fr. Treacy Boland, Bilgola Heights, Sydney & as quoted.