Donnelly's brickworks was responsible for the construction of several historic Downtown Kansas City Catholic churches including the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, and Old St. Patrick's.

[1][2] He was educated in Cavan and Dublin as an engineer and earned his first job helping to build the docks in Liverpool in the 1820s and 1830s.

Theobald Matthew (1790-1856) a noted temperance reformer who mentored Donnelly as a public organizer and speaker.

[4] In 1840 Donnelly enrolled in St. Mary's of the Barrens Seminary with the intention of serving as a Roman Catholic priest for the Irish community in the United States.

[7] He also served as a priest to the French community living at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers established by François Chouteau (1797–1838) in 1821.

Donnelly is also the namesake of the first modern division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the State of Kansas, which was founded in 2002.