Patrick O'Beirne

Patrick O'Beirne (December 31, 1808 – March 20, 1883[1]) was an Irish-born priest who ministered in the Archdiocese of Boston.

The Reverend

Patrick O'Beirne
Orders
OrdinationMarch 14, 1834
Personal details
Born(1808-12-31)December 31, 1808
Mohill, County Leitrim
DiedMarch 20, 1883(1883-03-20) (aged 74)
NationalityIrish
DenominationRoman Catholic, Latin Church
OccupationPriest, author

Personal life

He was born in Mohill, County Leitrim, on December 31, 1808, and arrived in America in 1833.[1] His brother, John O'Beirne, was also a priest in Boston.[1] Patrick died on March 20, 1883, and was buried next to his brother John on the grounds of St. Joseph's church in Roxbury.[1][2]

Ministry

O'Beirne was ordained a priest in 1835[lower-alpha 1] at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston[3][1] by Bishop Benedict Fenwick.[2] Over his career he served in Vermont, Rhode Island, and Maine, which were then parts of the Diocese of Boston.[4][2]

Immediately after his ordination, he spent some time at the cathedral before being transferred to St. Mary's in the North End[5][1][6] and then to Burlington, Vermont.[1] From 1841 to 1843, he served at what would later become the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Maine.[7][8]

O'Beirne then was assigned to Roxbury's St. Patrick's parish, in Boston.[1][9] As pastor of St. Patrick's, he established several new churches, including St. Joseph's, in Roxbury,[10] and St. Thomas Aquinas in Jamaica Plain.[11][12][13] He served as the first pastor of St. Joseph's[3][14] and remained there until his death in 1883.[15][16] At the suggestion of the religious sisters who ran the school, He also built a school house for the parish on the grounds of Notre Dame Academy in Roxbury.[17][18] In 1858, he was the principal celebrant at the solemn high Mass dedicating Immaculate Conception Church in Salem, Massachusetts.[19] Ordained for less than a decade, the 33-year-old O'Beirne had charge of the Catholics in Dedham, Norwood, Randolph, Holliston, Walpole, and Needham, as well as Roxbury.[4]

Prior to his pastorate at St. Joseph's, O'Beirne had charge of the parish and mission in Quincy, Massachusetts, in West Quincy, St. Mary's 1843–45.[20] While there, he purchased the land for what would become St. Mary's Church in Randolph.[21][22] He also served in St. Mary's early days.[23] Prior to the church being built, he would occasionally come out to say Mass for the Catholics of that community.[24] He was also briefly pastor of St. Rose of Lima in Chelsea, Massachusetts[25][26] and served at St. John the Evangelist in Hopkington, Massachusetts,[27] and St. Mary's in Holliston, Massachusetts.[28]

O'Beirne served on the Archbishop's Council[29] and opened the Toll Gate Cemetery on Hyde Park Avenue.[30]

Dispute at St. Mary's

O'Beirne served as co-pastor of St. Mary's Church in the North End with Fr. Thomas J. O’Flaherty beginning in 1840.[31][26] The parish, made up largely of Irish immigrants, soon split into two camps with each supporting one of the two priests.[31] The differences were partly political and partly about church governance.[31] By January 1842 the congregation was so divided that Bishop Fenwick was worried that violence may erupt and so visited on January 9, 1842, to try to restore the peace.[31] During Mass, he preached an hour long sermon on obedience and warned that those who attended mass meetings of protest could be excommunicated.[31]

Just a few days later, on January 13, 1842, a large group of O'Flaherty supporters gathered. When a member of the O'Beirne camp disrupted the meeting's opening address, a "mob situation" arose.[31] Police had to be called in to restore order.[31] In response, Fenwick wrote to parishioners and invited them to attend another meeting on January 16, 1842.[31] Parishioners from other parishes attended the meeting, disrupting it, and cutting it short to avoid another mob break out.[31] Fenwick then ordered the two priests to publicly reconcile on January 23, 1842.[32]

Not long after, O'Beirne requested a transfer to a different parish and was sent to Providence, Rhode Island, which was then part of the Boston Diocese.[32][26] His supporters at St. Mary's were not happy, however, and 400 of them signed a petition calling for his return.[32] When Fenwick refused, a riot broke out on February 20, 1842, during a vespers service O'Flaherty was presiding over.[32]

Parishioners were arrested, and Fenwick placed the parish under an interdict that shuttered it for two weeks.[32][26] In Providence, O'Beirnes new parishioners were not happy with him and told Fenwick so in insulting terms that the bishop would call "insolent" and "anti-Catholic".[32][33] Still seeking a solution, Fenwick reassigned all the priests in the troubled parishes in March.[32] O'Beirne moved again, this time to Taunton, Massachusetts.[34]

Dedham

By 1846, the Catholic community in Dedham, Massachusetts, was well established enough that the town became part of the mission of St. Joseph's Church.[35][36][37][38] The flood of Irish immigrants escaping the Great Famine necessitated holding Mass in the Temperance Hall, often O’Beirne.[37][39][40][35][36][41][42][43][44][45] Mass was also occasionally celebrated in the Crystal Palace on Washington Street.[46] Worshipers came from Dedham, South Dedham, West Dedham, and West Roxbury.[46]

While at St. Joseph's, he had charge of the mission in Dedham, Massachusetts, and he established what is today St. Mary's Church there.[47][45] In 1856 the cornerstone was laid and, in 1857, the first St. Mary's Church was completed on Washington Street between Spruce and Marion Streets.[35][37][38][48][49] On Easter Sunday, April 12, 1857, Father O’Beirne said Mass for the first time in the new 600 person church.[39][49][50][38][42][4][51][lower-alpha 2] Reading from the 20th chapter of John's Gospel, O'Beirne proclaimed the news of Jesus' empty tomb.[38] Though it was still part of the Roxbury Parish, O'Beirne or one of his assistants would travel to Dedham each Sunday to say mass.[51]

In April 1863 he purchased the Unitarian meetinghouse in South Dedham, today the parish of St. Catherine's in Norwood.[51][52] Prior to this, he would say mass in the homes of South Dedham parishioners.[53][54][52]

O'Beirne remained pastor of St. Mary's until 1866, when Fr. John P. Brennan took over.[39][40]

Notes
  1. Sulivan has the date as the year as 1834.[1]
  2. One source says it was Christmas Day.[43]

References
  1. Sullivan 1895, p. 148.
  2. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 145.
  3. Winsor & Jewett 1881, p. 525.
  4. Letter of Ksenya Kiebuzinski, Archdiocese of Boston archivist, to Robert Hanson, Dedham Historical Society, February 8, 1990. Archives of the Dedham Historical Society
  5. Sullivan 1895, p. 42.
  6. Winsor & Jewett 1881, p. 524.
  7. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 541.
  8. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 496.
  9. Sullivan 1895, p. 50.
  10. Sullivan 1895, pp. 147-148.
  11. Sullivan 1895, p. 190.
  12. Winsor & Jewett 1881, p. 540.
  13. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 152.
  14. Sullivan 1895, p. 146.
  15. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 202.
  16. Winsor & Jewett 1881, p. 527.
  17. Sullivan 1895, p. 231.
  18. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 177.
  19. Sullivan 1895, p. 453.
  20. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 331.
  21. Sullivan 1895, p. 696.
  22. Sullivan 1895, p. 712.
  23. Hurd 1884, p. 197.
  24. Sullivan 1895, p. 695.
  25. Sullivan 1895, p. 118.
  26. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 127.
  27. Sullivan 1895, p. 769.
  28. Sullivan 1895, p. 765.
  29. "Dust to Dust". The Boston Globe. April 23, 1878. p. 2. Retrieved September 20, 2019.
  30. "Ask The Globe". The Boston Globe. September 24, 1981. p. 63. Retrieved September 20, 2019.
  31. Patkus 2001, p. 67.
  32. Patkus 2001, p. 68.
  33. Byrne et al. 1899, pp. 394-395.
  34. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 415.
  35. Vogler, Paula (April 21, 2016). "Parish looks to origins as members celebrate anniversary". The Dedham Transcript. Retrieved October 17, 2016.
  36. "St. Mary's: "A cathedral in the wilderness". The Dedham Times. October 5, 2001. p. 14.
  37. "History: St. Mary's Church". St. Mary's Church, Dedham, MA. Retrieved March 9, 2015.
  38. "New Catholic Church". The Dedham Transcript. October 30, 1886. p. 3.
  39. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 323.
  40. Hurd 1884, p. 78.
  41. Sullivan 1895, p. 667.
  42. St. Mary's Church, Dedham, Massachusetts, 1866-1966, Our Centennial Year. Hackensack, N.J.: Custombook, Inc. Ecclesiastical Color Publishers. 1966.
  43. "St. Mary's at Dedham: First Services in the Basement of the New Catholic Church Crowded--Many Protestant Donors Present". Boston Daily Globe. October 25, 1886. p. 5. Retrieved March 13, 2015.
  44. "Daniel Slattery's house and the Temperance Hall". The Dedham Times. August 8, 1995. p. 6.
  45. Vogler, Paula (April 29, 2016). "The priests and their influence on the parish". The Dedham Transcript. Retrieved September 20, 2019.
  46. Smith 1936, p. 100.
  47. Sullivan 1895, pp. 667-668.
  48. Cook, Louis Atwood (1918). History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, 1622-1918. 1. S.J. Clarke publishing Company. p. 425.
  49. Smith 1936, p. 101.
  50. Hurd 1884, p. 323.
  51. Sullivan 1895, p. 668.
  52. Byrne et al. 1899, p. 329.
  53. Sullivan 1895, p. 681.
  54. Hurd 1884, p. 505.

Works cited
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