First Catholic priest in Tasmania.

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry:
Philip Conolly (1786–1839)
by Linda Monks

This article was published in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, 1966, online in 2006.

Philip Conolly (1786-1839), Roman Catholic chaplain, was born in County Monaghan, Ireland. Educated for the priesthood, he was ordained at Maynooth, and did pastoral duties for five years in the Dublin archdiocese. He answered the call for volunteer missionaries when the British government consented to have Roman Catholic chaplains stationed at Botany Bay and the Derwent. A Protestant magistrate described him as 'a truly loyal man, and a very useful member of Society'. The archbishop of Dublin said: 'We have known Rev. Philip Conolly to be a Catholic Clergyman of exemplary religious and moral habits'. These references satisfied Earl Bathurst, who told Lachlan Macquarie in October 1819 that Fathers Conolly and John Joseph Therry had his authority to officiate in Australia. The two chaplains arrived in Sydney in the Janus in May 1820, and after a year's duty there, Conolly reached Hobart Town on 14 April 1821. His first Mass was celebrated at a store owned by Edward Curr, later manager of the Van Diemen's Land Co., with nine free people present. Macquarie had insisted on restricting the time and place of Divine Service, assistance at marriages and the instruction of children in government institutions, but William Sorell and (Sir) George Arthur proved somewhat more tolerant.

A man 'of no small ability and attainments, witty and full of dry humour', Conolly laboured for fourteen years among 'a wicked and perverse generation', making regular quarterly visits on horseback to Launceston, George Town and other settlements. So efficient was his ministry that Arthur sought, albeit without success, a higher salary for him in 1826, claiming that no one could have performed the duties of his office 'with more satisfaction to the Government'. In 1824 Sorell had granted him five acres (2 ha) of land in Hobart, now occupied by St Mary's Cathedral. Here he built St Virgil's chapel, but it was a poor scarecrow of a church, with loose floor boards, unceiled and unplastered. Its state, and Conolly's criticism of the conduct of some of his flock, in 1834 aroused counter-allegations that he was indolent and neglected his parishioners. Other complaints arose from the title to the land occupied by the chapel, and the residence, Killard, attached to it. Though Sorell, when asked, stated that the land had been granted for church purposes, not as a personal location, a committee which Arthur had appointed in 1835, decided in Conolly's favour. But meanwhile aroused by criticism, and as Dean Kenny of Sydney put it, 'rather antiquated in his manner as a result of being so long by himself', he had given a vague, irrelevant and highly disrespectful reply to inquiries by Bishop John Bede Polding who had come down from Sydney at the end of 1835 to try to patch up the troubles, and had been suspended from his sacerdotal functions. He started an action against Polding for defamation, but in the end retired to Killard. Then the Caveat Board, after making further inquiries of Sorell and George Evans, concluded by majority that Conolly had not established his land claim; but its lack of unanimity enabled him to appeal to the Supreme Court. However, before the case was heard Conolly became ill; he died on 3 August 1839, and in due course his heirs relinquished their claims to the disputed lands. His last years had been spent in turmoil but his earlier energy had securely established his church in the colony. Sorell, Arthur, public officials and newspapers all paid tribute to Conolly's many excellent qualities.

Select Bibliography

H. N. Birt, Benedictine Pioneers in Australia, vol 1 (Lond, 1911)
J. H. Cullen, The Catholic Church in Tasmania (Launceston, 1949)
correspondence file under Philip Conolly (Archives Office of Tasmania).

Citation details
Linda Monks, 'Conolly, Philip (1786–1839)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/conolly-philip-1915/text2275, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 25 June 2025.

This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, (Melbourne University Press), 1966.

Reproduced by permission of Australian Dictionary of Biography. Original biography:https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/conolly-philip-1915.

First Resident [Priest] and Storm Centre in Tasmania
Fr T.J. Linane, From Abel to Zundolovich, Vol. 2: Biographies of Priests on the Australian Scene up to 1900, 1980, pp 74-75:

Quite a few references can be found relating to the Official Chaplains, Conolly and Therry, who arrived in Sydney on the 'Janus', 3 May 1820. Therry comes under the searchlight more often than his less vocal and active companion, especially in the writings of Cardinal Moran and Dr. Eris O'Brien. For a balanced assessment of Philip Conolly reference should be made to what the late Hobart historian, Mgr. Cullen has written in the A.C.R. (Oct.1949), and also to what Fr. W.T. Southerwood has to say in his book 'Planting a Faith in Hobart'. If some writers present Conolly as idle, obstinate and quarrelsome, certainly these writers do not. Linda Monks in the 'Australian Dictionary of Biography' (Vol. 1) presents him as a man 'of no small ability and attainments, witty and full of dry humour'. The columnist finds the testimony of Columbus Fitzpatrick—one who knew Conolly personally—acceptable. It's easy to berate a priest's character, but it's a different matter to restore it. What Fitzpatrick had to say can be found in a neat publication of the A.C.H.S., written and edited by Mgr. Duffy, Sydney Archivist, and entitled: 'Catholic and Social Life in the Macquarie Era'. It indicates that Conolly was no idler in the brief Sydney stay, visiting the convict outposts of Port Macquarie and Newcastle. Vexing questions appear to remain unanswered. Did he find the explosive Therry incompatible? Did he choose deliberately the more unsavoury assignment where the treatment of convicts was known to be harsher?

Birthplace was Co. Monaghan and Maynooth records show that he was educated there. He saw service in the diocese of Dublin, at Rathnally, County Carlow, for five years.

When Dr. Slater, bishop of the Cape of Good Hope—Mauritius—New Holland appealed to the Irish clergy for mission help by way of a circular, Conolly responded. Approbation by the Colonial Office eventually meant a thrust into Therry's company and arrival in New Holland. March 21, 1821 marked his departure for Hobart and April 14 his arrival. First Mass was said in the store of Edward Curr—a layman who proved friend at first and foe later on, and if P.C. had as much to put up with from Curr as Dr. Goold did later in Melbourne, sympathy for the pastor is not mis-placed. On 23 April 1823 in a letter to Therry he described his lowly chapel of St. Virgilius—one step forward where the Catholic population (convict and free) were sparse and frowned on by officialdom.

Fr. Samuel Coote blew in on 7 May 1824, having been commissioned by the Colonial Office as a chaplain to Van Dieman's Land in August of 1823 and bearing recommendations from Dr. Poynton, Vicar Apostolic in London, and Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin. But neither Conolly nor the Governor were impressed by the newcomer, and the cool atmosphere being prolonged Coote went on his way. The objection, it seems, was that he carried no Faculty Sheet from the Bishop of Mauritius. Strangely in June, Conolly wrote to Poynton seeking missionaries—with the proviso that they had to be Gaelic speakers. In the same year Conolly acquired or was allotted the five acre site of St. Mary's, and in 1826 had set up a Catholic school with Owen Wade, a convict, as teacher.

The next six years appear to be devoid of progress, and by February 1834 the lay committee (Curr, etc.) had lost patience with the incumbent pastor. They despatched a stiff report to the London Bishop—one which Polding must have known about when he arrived in August 1835, en route to Sydney as the new bishop of New Holland. Polding was not impressed with the first of his missions visited, and left John Kenny (catechist) and Fr. Ambrose Cotham OSB to help the dilatory pastor. In March of the following year Cotham reported that it was impossible to live with Conolly. Polding made a tactical error, it would seem, by sending the 'mystery man', Fr. James Watkins, as Vicar General, thus superseding Conolly's authority. Fr. Therry then became embroiled as V.G. when the 'mystery man' was in turn superseded (coming later to Melbourne as the first priest to step ashore, but not the first to say Mass. For this sad story see O'Brien's 'The Life of John Joseph Therry'). Conolly was suspended from priestly duties by Polding as from the time of Therry's arrival in March 1838, and responded by suing his bishop for defamation. Another sad story! But all's well that ends well, for P.C. was reconciled by his companion of former years before the visitation of the Angel of Death on 3 August 1839. The age was 53 and his remains are in St. Mary's Cathedral Church, but now covered by a tiled floor.

Ref:
'Planting a Faith in Hobart', by Fr. W. T. Southerwood.
Footprints Vol. 2, No. 9

Hobart Town Courier and Van Diemen's Land Gazette, 9 Aug 1839, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8748089:

The Rev. Philip Conolly, whose death took place on Saturday last, has left a name which will be long remembered for the many virtues with which it was associated. His unassuming manners, his steadfast friendships, his unmeddling habits, his perfect freedom from asperity, secured him the esteem of all who had ever known him; while the annoyances—to use a mild term—by which his latter days were embittered—the deferring of hope to the sickening of the heart—until like the growing roots of the flower which burst the vase that contained it, they became too much for his frame to bear—gained for him a sympathy, which, had His Excellency's advisers witnessed his funeral on Wednesday last, might have taught them, after all, how weak and impotent a thing all power is, except that which Lord Bacon speaks of when he says—"power to do good is the sole end of lawful authority; for good thoughts though God accept them, yet they are, as far as man is concerned, useless."

Mr. Conolly arrived here in 1821. He conducted the duties of his sacred office in such a manner as to obtain the approval of Sir George Arthur, and his predecessor Colonel Sorell. From the latter he obtained an allotment of land, around which he built a wall and continued to reside upon it; but years subsequently to his having taken possession, three or four persons styling themselves "the Catholic Committee," claimed the allotment, and the claim, without any consent ever having been obtained, or even asked from Mr. Conolly, was referred to the decision of a Board of two Government officers, which Board, however, unlike those patent dispensers of justice, .whose labours at the Orphan School we have elsewhere alluded to—reported in accordance with the evidence, and in favour of the claim of Mr. Conolly. From that day to the day of his death, not only was there no grant of the allotment made to him, but by some unaccountable means, every obstacle which ingenuity could devise was resorted to, in order to defeat a claim, the justice of which, in one of his early memorandums, was fully admitted by Sir George Arthur himself! But he "sleeps well''—his memory will survive the short-lived, though successful triumph of his enemies, in the many grateful recollections with which it is associated.