DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF BRISBANE

New Zealand Tablet, 25 January 1917, Page 31

DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF BRISBANE

His Grace the Most Rev. Dr. Robert Dunne, Archbishop of Brisbane, died at his residence, f Dara,’ Brisbane, on Saturaday, at the age of 87 years, after an episcopate of 34 years (says the Catholic Press of January 18). The late Archbishop, though keen and bright in intellect to this last, had been incapacitated from physical, work for many years, and consequently was unable to travel, so that his energetic Coadjutor, the Most Rev. Dr. Duhig, was better known to the younger generation, both in Queensland and the other States, as the representative of Brisbane in the Hierarchy. The late Archbishop was born near Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, in 1830. He received his preliminary education at the Grammar School in Lismore, Co. Waterford, and' thence proceeded to Rome to study for the priesthood at the Irish College and the Roman University. His course was brilliant, and therefore, when he was ordained in 1855 for the archdiocese of Dublin, he was appointed a professor in the College of St. Laurence O Toole, Dublin, a college established to provide university tuition for Catholic. youths. He taught there for several years, under the presidency of Dr. James O’Quinn, who was appointed first Bishop of Brisbane in 1859. When Bishop O Quinn, found himself in charge of the rising but. scattered Church in Queensland he invited his late colleague to come to him, and Dr. Dunne arrived in Brisbane in 1863, and was appointed secretary to the Bishop, an office for which he was well fitted, as he was master of several languages, and wrote, as his publications show, in a concise, clear, and elegant style. He also acted as administrator of St. Stephen’s Cathedral until 1869, when he was transferred to take charge of Toowoomba, the city of the famous Darling Downs, and appointed Vicar-General. In 1881 Dr. Dunne left on a visit to Ireland. During his absence in the old land Bishop O’Quinn died, and when the traveller returned, at the end of 1881, he found letters from Rome awaiting him, notifying his appointment as Bishop of Brisbane. ’ The Plenary Synod held in. Sydney in 1885 was the greatest event, up to that time, in the Australian Church. It was presided over by the Cardinal, and was attended by 15 bishops, 52 theologians, and a great array of clergy. On the petition of the Synod the Holy See erected Queensland into a separate province, with Brisbane as the archiepiscopal see, and by Brief dated May 10, 1887, Dr. Dunne was constituted the first Archbishop. He received the Sacred Pallium at the hands of the late Cardinal Moran on December 8, 1887. By the death of his contemporaries, Dr. Dunne became the senior Archbishop in the Commonwealth, and was junior as a Bishop in Australasia only to Archbishop Redwood, whose elevation to the Hierarchy dates back to 1874. , The body of the late Archbishop was removed on Sunday to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, where it lay in state and was viewed by many thousands. On Monday morning at 10 o’clock a Solemn Office and Requiem Mass was celebrated, at which his Grace Archbishop Duhig presided. His Lordship Bishop O’Connor of Armidale was the celebrant, and a large number of the clergy from Brisbane and the adjoining dioceses were present. Messages of sympathy have been received from his Excellency the Apostolic Delegate, the archbishops, bishops, and many of the priests in various States, the Governor of Queensland, and the heads of other religious denominations. Sympathetic references were made on Sunday at St. John’s Anglican Cathedral and other non-Catholic churches.R.l.P. : !