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 Thomas Vincent Hayes, died 27 Apr 1911

Thomas Vincent Hayes was born in Brisbane in 1862 - within sight of St Stephen's Cathedral, in the old Hayes Buildings, Elizabeth Street, where the Embassy Hotel now stands. He was the son of Mr and Mrs Owen Hayes. He began his schooling at St Killian's (now St Laurence's College). In 1875 the Christian Brothers arrived in Brisbane and established St Stephen's School. Thomas Hayes was one of their first pupils. He continued his education at Gregory Terrace and went on to seminary studies at All Hallows, Dublin. He spent three years there before moving to the Jesuit College attached to the University of Innsbruck. During this time he received training in the German language, for work among the many German immigrants in Queensland. He was ordained priest in Innsbruck on 25th July 1885 and set out for Queensland, arriving in Brisbane in the November of that year, together with Frs John and Matthew Ryan (brothers), Phillip Brady and Peter McCormack. He served as Assistant Priest at Warwick and Toowoomba (1885-1892) and became the first Parish Priest of Goodna (1892-1911). In 1906 he visited Ireland, Europe and Rome. He died aged 49 in 1911 and is buried in Nudgee Cemetery. Pugh's Almanac list Father Hayes as serving in Toowoomba in 1883, 1886-1892; this earlier date is obviously an error.
(Ref. Linane H53, Brisbane Archives and Pugh's)

Reproduced by permission of Bishop Ken Howell.

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Denis M. Long, Pioneer and Early Priests, Archdiocese of Brisbane, Deceased or retired by 1929, 2021, pp 134-135:
Fr Thomas Vincent Hayes

Thomas Vincent Hayes was the youngest of the six children of Owen and Catherine (nee Cahill) Hayes. Thomas was born on 4 April 1862 in the Hayes Buildings on the corner of Edward and Elizabeth Streets diagonally across the road from the site of the former Ulster Hotel. His father was the licensee of the Criterion Hotel for some years.

Thomas for some time attended Dr Kenny's school, St Killian's College on the present site of St Laurence's College at South Brisbane. He was a first day student at St Joseph's school in the old St Stephen's chapel, when the Christian Brothers opened their first school in Brisbane. Later he moved to new site of St Joseph's on Gregory Terrace. A fellow pupil was John Joseph Ryan, the first Australian-born priest ordained for the Archdiocese of Brisbane.(1)

John Ryan moved to St Stanislaus's College in Bathurst to commence his education for the priesthood at St Charles seminary.

But, in 1880 Bishop Quinn sent Thomas Hayes and John Ryan's brother Matthew to be educated for the priesthood at All Hallows College Dublin. In 1883, realising the need of priests who could speak German, in order to minister to the many German Catholic migrants settling in the diocese, Bishop Dunne transferred Thomas and Matthew to the Jesuit University in Innsbruck. They were the first of number of students for the priesthood that Dunne sent to Innsbruck. Thomas Hayes and Matthew Ryan were ordained to the priesthood in Innsbruck on 22 July 1885.

Four months prior to their ordination, Thomas and Matthew had been present at the ordination of John Ryan in the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome on 4 April 1885. John had moved from St Charles at Bathurst to complete his ecclesiastical education at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome.

The three newly ordained priests joined two Irish priests Fathers Philip Brady and Peter McCormack, who had been ordained at St Patrick's college in Carlow, to sail for Australia aboard the Orient liner RMS Cuzco to arriving in Sydney, in November 1885.

Fr Hayes first appointment was as curate to Fr Thomas O'Connell in Toowoomba. He remained there for six years. He became very popular. He was farewelled with people lauding his work. In a speech at the farewell Fr O'Connell remarked that Fr Hayes "had done the lion's share of the work … He (Fr O'Connell) was not much good at work at the best of times".(2)

Fr Hayes was then appointed the first priest-in-charge of the Goodna mission, which had been excised from the Ipswich mission.

Fr Hayes was very popular in Goodna. Special mention was made of his caring efforts during the 1893 floods(3) and his care of patients in the Goodna Psychiatric hospital.(4)

In 1903 he was stricken with a severe bout of pneumonia. He was advised to go north to a warmer climatic to recover his health.(5) He spent three months in North Queensland where he recovered and returned to Goodna in late July.(6)

In February 1906, after fourteen years in Goodna, Fr Hayes left by the Orient liner Ortona on a trip to the Holy Land, Europe and Ireland to return via America. Father Francis Burton administered the parish during his absence.

The people of Goodna celebrated the silver jubilee of Fr Hayes' ordination to the priesthood with a number of functions on and around 25 July 1910.(7)

Less than nine months later Fr Thomas Hayes, following a series of operations in the Mater Misericordiae hospital, died in the Goodna presbytery early on Friday 28 April 1911. He was 49 years of age. A Requiem Mass was celebrated in Goodna by Fr William Cashman on the day of his death before his body was brought to the cathedral of St Stephen.

On Saturday 29 April the traditional rituals of Office of the Dead and Requiem Mass, celebrated by Fr Kelleher, were celebrated prior to his funeral liturgy in the cathedral.

His only sibling at the funeral was his sister Mrs O'Driscoll. His sister-in-law Mrs Patrick Hayes and a nephew Owen Hayes, who was to be ordained a priest seven years later, and a niece are mentioned in the newspaper report. Following the cathedral liturgies Fr William Lee officiated at Fr Hayes burial in the priests' section of Nudgee Catholic cemetery.(8)

Footnotes
1. Brian Grenier CFC, The Terracian - First-day Terracians, 2016, p. 6.
2. Darling Downs Gazette, 21 May 1892, p. 3.
3. Queensland Times, 29 Apr 1911, p. 13.
4. Ibid. 3 Feb 1906, p. 11.
5. Queensland Times, Ipswich, 16 May 1903, p. 4.
6. Ibid., 1 Aug 1903, p. 4
7. Freeman's Journal, Ipswich Herald & General Advertiser, Sydney, 4 Aug 1910, p. 17.
8. Brisbane Courier, 1 May 1911, p. 9.

Reproduced by permission of Fr Denis Long.