Fr Denis W. Martin, Priests of 1928, Brisbane, 2003, pp 58-59:
Philip Corrigan

One Sunday afternoon in the late 1880s, three young Irish police constables who were on duty in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens stood together for a short time to have a yarn. As they did so the imposing figure of a well-dressed Fr Philip Corrigan walked by. Conversation stopped and each said spontaneously 'Oh how I'd like to have a son a priest! ' And in God's good time, so it was - not three priests but seven. There were to be four Concannons, two O'Callaghans and Mons. McCoy of Townsville. If only recruiting vocations were so easy today!

Brisbane journalist Spencer Browne in his memoirs wrote, 'Fr Corrigan rode a very handsome chestnut horse when I first knew him. He was a very smart looking young priest and a tip top horseman. Later I met him at Charleville when he was a peacemaker in the days of the shearer's strike of 1891, and later again in the Burnett ...'

A recent history of Charleville has it that 'Fr Corrigan became very popular during his term which ended in 1896. Soon after arriving he made a plea to the congregation to tie up their dogs during Mass, adding he would never be lonely with goats at home and dogs in church.'

Here in the photo Philip Corrigan is the oldest priest. He was born in 1857 and ordained at Carlow College in mid 1879. When he arrived in Brisbane later that year he was the youngest priest in Australasia being not quite 23 years of age. So he is also the only priest in the group to have worked under the first Bishop, James Quinn, when President of St Killian's College, South Brisbane.

Among the earliest memories of his priesthood in Brisbane was the day in February 1881 when 28 year old Fr John Ahern was buried at Nudgee, the first priest to be laid to rest there. Fr Ahern had died of sunstroke at St Killian's after going about Fortitude Valley collecting funds for the new St Patrick's Church. The procession from St Stephen's to Nudgee took three hours. As it was forming up near Wharf St, Fr Robert Dunne passed by. He felt his services were no longer needed in Queensland and was on his way to the wharf to go south by steamer. Bishop Quinn himself lay ill in hospital in Sydney, but it was not many months before his death was also to be etched in Fr Corrigan's mind. In later years, James Duhig and the younger priests delighted in listening to his stories of 'the old days'.

Charleville, Nanango, Eidsvold, Childers and Allora were places worked by Fr Corrigan. His presbyteries were always places of hospitality but unfortunately this began the habit of taking 'a nip or two' which Dunne condemned as 'scandalous behaviour' and Duhig downgraded him to curate at Ipswich for a couple of years. In 1917, he was promoted to Parish Priest again and sent to Dutton Park. He probably suspected rightly that James Duhig's unexpected visits were to check on his sobriety. To avoid being caught, he got a man to come to the presbytery and cut a series of extra doorways so that if any spies arrived at the front door he could quietly escape without being seen. In the new presbytery of 1926, a secret 'home supplies' cupboard was not overlooked in the planning.

Ten years later, Fr Corrigan died in this presbytery, on 6th June 1936. His funeral was attended by the Lieutenant-Governor and the Chief Justice, and Duhig spoke fittingly of him: 'He had the heart of a child in the frame of a giant. He was always the gentleman in dress and in manners, and if sometimes his corrections and his admonitions were felt by those to whom they were directed, they left no ill feeling.'

At 79 years of age, and after 56 years of work in the Archdiocese, he was laid to rest at Nudgee Cemetery. The inscription simply says he was 'First Parish Priest of St Ita's, Gladstone Rd, Brisbane'.

Having written that Fr Ahern was the first of the many priests to be buried at Nudgee, it is worth recording here that several earlier ones were interred at the old Milton burial grounds. They were William Bowe [1864], Patrick O'Grady [1867], and Guiseppe Pompei [1872]. With the re-development of Lang Park reviving interest in the old cemetery, the Brisbane Catholic Historical Society was instrumental in having a brass plaque erected to their memory at Nudgee, quite near to Fr Ahern's monument. Another who was laid to rest at Milton in 1874 had been a priest, Fr John Killeen Handy, but he gave it up to study law, married, and embarked on a political career. He was reconciled on his deathbed by Bishop Quinn. A story persisted for many a year that in the depths of the night after the funeral, the Bishop and Fr James Horan were driven out by carriage to bless the grave of this 'disgraced priest'.

(Reproduced by permission of Fr Denis Martin.)

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Prayer Calendar: Deceased Priests who have ministered the Catholic Faith throughout Toowoomba and districts, 1864–2025, Compiled by Annie Carrett, Diocesan Archivist, 2001, Updated by Gabrielle Saide, Diocesan Archivist, 2023:
Rev Phillip R Corrigan, died 6 June 1936

Born in Ireland, he attended Carlow Seminary, obtained sub-deacon in 1878, deacon 1879 and was ordained in 1880. Early after his arrival in Australia, Bishop Quinn made him Administrator in South Brisbane and later he became the first Priest in charge of Fortitude Valley. In 1890, the directory shows him at Charleville, where he became known as a splendid rider, especially of his beautiful chestnut mount, and a peacemaker in the 1891 Charleville shearer's strike. He is remembered for helping the westerners through many droughts and strikes. His following appointments included Nanango in 1897 then Childers and Boonah and then he disappears in records until 1908 when Eidsvold is his next posting. He is listed at Ipswich in 1915-16 and South Brisbane in 1917. Fifty-six years of active duty had been served when he died at age 79. He is buried at Nudgee.
(Ref. Linane C161)

Reproduced by permission of Bishop Ken Howell.

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Fr T.J. Linane, From Abel to Zundolovich, Vol. 2: Biographies of Priests on the Australian Scene up to 1900, 1980, pp 88-89:

Corrigan, Phillip R., Irish, Golden Jubilarian
Peacemaker in Charleville Shearers' Strike
He received attention in a history written by Spencer Brown, concerning his role as peacemaker in the Charleville shearers' strike of 1891; and is highly eulogised in Fr Jeremiah O'Leary's history, entitled 'Catholic Progress'. The county of origin is unknown. The Seminary attended was Carlow, where he was made sub-deacon in 1878, deacon in '79, and priest in mid 1880. Bishop James Quinn thrust responsibility on his shoulders very early, by making him Administrator at South Brisbane. Later he became the first to have charge of Fortitude Valley; but in carrying out these assignments he appears to have a part of St. Stephen's Cathedral staff. The Directory of 1890 shows that he was as far west as one with a pioneering urge could go: Charleville. And here he became known as a splendid rider with a handsome chestnut mount. Strikers and droughts were the problem of people in the far-flung Charleville region, which embraced Birdsville and many other centres spread in all directions. In later years the Bishop preferred to regard the place as a curacy, on account of drought conditions, so it's to be hoped that Corrigan and successors had a stake in the Remuneration Fund — if there was one.

About 1897 he became P.P. of Nanango and about 1903 commenced a church, to which the honour of completion goes to Fr Mark Cosgrove. First priest to live in Childers and Boonah — but in what years he received these pioneering appointments is unclear from the mixed-up Directories of the time. Nowhere is he to be found on the 1904, '05 and '06 Directories, but this may have been due to illness, absence overseas, or poor reporting. Eidsvold was another scene of labour and hard riding according to Directories (1908)(1909). He is listed as an assistant at Ipswich in 1915 and '16. And then follows a long stay commencing in 1917 as P.P. of St. Ita's, Gladstone Road, South Brisbane. 56 years on active duty was the record when death came his way on 6 June 1936. The age was 79, and burial place was Nudgee. And perhaps it would take more than the present writer's knowledge of his achievements to properly describe a priest whose popularity was so high in Brisbane itself and in the outback.
(Footprints, Vol. 2, No. 11)
Ref.: MDHC File, Torquay, per Rev. F. Douglas, Chancellor, Brisbane