Australian Dictionary of Biography entry:
James Quinn (1819–1881)
by H. J. Gibbney

This article was published in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, 1974, online in 2006.

James Quinn (1819-1881), Roman Catholic bishop, was born on 17 March 1819 at Rathbane, County Kildare, Ireland, son of Matthew Quinn, farmer, and his wife Mary, née Doyle. Educated at Kelly's School in Dublin, he was entered at the Irish College in Rome by his uncle, Fr John Doyle, and graduated in 1845 with a gold medal from Pope Gregory XVI. After ordination on 15 August 1846 he worked in a parish at Blackrock near Dublin, coping with a cholera epidemic. From 14 June 1850 he was president of St Laurence O'Toole Seminary. As confessor and director of the Sisters of Mercy he visited France in 1854 to investigate continental nursing practices, helped to organize the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Dublin, and arranged to recruit nursing nuns for the Crimean war.

On 14 April 1859 Quinn was appointed bishop of Brisbane. After visiting Europe to recruit clergy and nuns he sailed in the Donald Mackay and reached Brisbane on 12 March 1861. He found an enormous diocese, weak in personnel, physical resources and financially in debt. His first attempt to resolve the financial problem by demanding control of educational funds collected in Ipswich parish precipitated a long unedifying quarrel with the pioneer Fr McGinty and influential parishioners like Patrick O'Sullivan, a quarrel which set the tone for his episcopate.

With help from Mother Mary Vincent Whitty of the order of Mercy he made rapid progress in establishing a Catholic education system, but in alliance with the Anglican Bishop Tufnell sought without success in 1863-64 to divert the tendency towards secularism in education. Quinn's purchase of the North Australian at Ipswich as a propaganda organ in the campaign alienated both friends and enemies, particularly when he stubbornly denied any share in the paper, and increased his financial problems. In 1862, impressed by the possibilities of immigration legislation, Quinn founded his Queensland Immigration Society which brought out ten ships with about 6000 migrants, mainly Irish. The Hibernian flood immediately aroused sectarian hostility, fanned by an unguarded remark of the bishop that the colony might yet be called 'Quinn's land'; in 1864 the society was dissolved.

Quinn's conception of his episcopal position was exemplified in a statement during the quarrel with McGinty: 'I am a sacred person … anyone attacking my character commits a most gross and sacrilegious act'. Fired by this ideal, he sought to regulate even the smallest details of his diocese and made countless enemies in the process. He tampered with the internal rule of the Sisters of Mercy and in March 1865 replaced the popular Mother Mary as head of the order by a sycophant who called him 'Pater Noster'. In 1867 six priests withdrew from the diocese and complained to Rome. Despite Quinn's objections, they were permitted to move to the United States.

In 1869 Quinn left for the Vatican Council at Rome. He was elected to two minor commissions of the council, neither of which ever met, and saw something of the Italian attack on Rome. During the council recess he visited Ireland but his efforts to recruit priests for his diocese were foiled by wide circulation of his authoritarian reputation and he had to be content with Italians.

On his return to Brisbane in May 1872 Quinn, suffering from rheumatism, faced new problems. His Italian recruits, already at loggerheads with his administrator, Dr Cani, had complained to Rome. Unlike Mother Mary Vincent Whitty, Mother Mary MacKillop, of the order of St Joseph, refused to submit to Quinn's demand for rigid episcopal control of the order and in 1875 her withdrawal of the order from Queensland aroused violent public controversy both within and without the church. In 1877 another group of dissident priests compiled and circulated a Syllabus Accusationum of twenty-one charges against Quinn which included nepotism, intemperance and undue accumulation of land. The syllabus and a counter-petition, the signatures to which were allegedly inspired by pressure from Quinn, were referred by Rome to Archbishop Vaughan for report. Between 1878 and 1880, Vaughan laboured mightily to find the truth through a personal mission by Sir John O'Shanassy in 1878 and what was virtually a system of espionage through prominent clerics and laymen. Before the matter was resolved, Quinn fell ill on the way to Hobart and died at Brisbane on 18 August 1881. In a fervour of Irish nationalism after the Daniel O'Connell centenary of 1875, he had taken to calling himself O'Quinn; his death was registered in that form.

Quinn's piety, zeal and energy had never been in doubt, but in his almost monarchical idea of the episcopal office he frequently lost sight of some of the fundamental principles of Christianity. Curiously, he was not bigoted and was often censured by other members of his church for undue familiarity with Protestants. He may have been guilty of nepotism but charges of intemperance and an enormous personal fortune were probably groundless. His will left all his possessions to the church.

Select Bibliography

Life and Labours of the Right Rev. Dr. O'Quinn (Brisb, 1881)
Tyr-Owen, Obituary Notice of the Late Right Reverand Dr. James O'Quinn, Bishop of Brisbane (Brisb, 1881)
P. F. Moran, History of the Catholic Church in Australasia (Syd, 1895)
J. N. Molony, The Roman Mould of the Australian Catholic Church (Melb, 1969)
P. J. O'Farrell, The Catholic Church in Australia, 1788-1967 (Melb, 1968), and Documents in Australian Catholic History (Lond, 1969)
M. X. O'Donoghue, Mother Vincent Whitty (Melb, 1972)
Votes and Proceedings (Legislative Assembly, Queensland), 1863, 1st S, 521, 1875, 2, 249
Brisbane Courier, 21 Aug 1862
Town and Country Journal, 20 Feb 1875, 27 Aug 1881
Y. M. McLay, James Quinn: An Historical Introduction (M.A. qualifying thesis, University of Queensland, 1970)
Roman Catholic Archives, Box D (Sydney)
CO 234/11/231, 275, 12/162, 13/297.

Citation details
H. J. Gibbney, 'Quinn, James (1819–1881)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/quinn-james-4425/text7229, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online 2 July 2025.

This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, (Melbourne University Press), 1974.

Reproduced by permission of Australian Dictionary of Biography. Original biography: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/quinn-james-4425.

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Denis M. Long, Pioneer and Early Priests, Archdiocese of Brisbane, Deceased or retired by 1929, 2021, p 26:
Most Rev James O'Quinn

The life and times of Bishop Quinn the first bishop of Brisbane are documented in the work of Brisbane Sister of Mercy Anne McLay in her biography James Quinn – First Catholic Bishop of Brisbane, published in 1979. I would encourage those interested to learn more about the first bishop of our diocese.

For the sake of my present work, I give a brief account of Dr Quinn's story.

James Quinn was born on 17 March 1819 at Rathbane, County Kildare in Ireland, son of Matthew Quinn, a farmer, and his wife Mary née Doyle. Educated at Kelly's School in Dublin, he moved to the Irish College in Rome, undertaking studies at the Jesuits' College, graduating in 1845 with a gold medal from Pope Gregory XIV. He was ordained on 15 August 1846.

Following ordination he worked in a parish at Blackrock near Dublin, coping with a cholera epidemic. From 14 June 1850 he was president of St Laurence O'Toole Seminary.(1)

Dr Quinn was appointed the first bishop of Brisbane on 14 April 1859. Consecrated bishop on 29 June he spent over eighteen months recruiting clergy and religious sisters before he sailed on the Donald Mackay to reach Brisbane, via Melbourne, on 10 May 1861.

On his arrival in Brisbane, the new diocese had four churches, four schools and a debt of £1250. Quinn was very active in trying to grow the Roman Catholic presence leading to the joke that the colony should not be called Queensland but Quinn's Land. Despite such remarks, he was respected by both Catholic and Protestants.(2)

In 1869 Quinn left for the Vatican Council at Rome. He was elected to two minor commissions of the council, neither of which ever met, and saw something of the Italian attack on Rome. During the council he visited Ireland but his efforts to recruit priests for his diocese were foiled by a wide circulation of his authoritarian reputation and he had to be content with Italians.(3)

On his return to Brisbane in May 1871 Quinn faced new problems. Of sixteen Italian recruits, twelve left the colony within a few short years. He had invited Mother Mary MacKillop to send sisters to the colony, but she refused to submit to Quinn's demand for episcopal control of the congregation. By 1879 three of their schools were closed; by 1881 all the sisters had been withdrawn. As had happened in 1867, again in 1877 a group of dissident priests compiled and circulated a Syllabus Accusationum of twenty-one charges against Quinn. Other priests, supporting the bishop, counter petitioned. This was a time of suffering for the bishop whose piety, zeal and energy were never in doubt.

Suffering for years from severe rheumatism, he took ill on a visit to Hobart, and returned to die in his home Dara on 18 August 1881. When the fervour of Irish nationalism was activated in 1875 at the time of Daniel O'Connell's birth centenary, Quinn took to calling himself O'Quinn. His death was registered under this name.

I have not tried to precis Sister McLay's great work, for my brief story would do her work an injustice.

Footnotes
1. Australian Dictionary of Biography - H J Gibbney, Vol 5. (MUP) 1974.
2. James Quinn (bishop), Wikipedia, May 2017.
3. Australian Dictionary of Biography, op. cit.

Reproduced by permission of Fr Denis Long.