He taught at Holy Cross before becoming the president of Loyola College, where he liquidated some of the school's debt, which had accrued during the Civil War.

In 1885, McGurk became the president of Gonzaga College (later a high school) in Washington, D.C. During his tenure, he constructed a new residence for the Jesuits and scholastics.

[1][a] He studied at St. Joseph's Preparatory School before entering the Society of Jesus on July 20, 1857, proceeding to the novitiate in Frederick, Maryland.

In September 1861, McGurk was sent to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, for his regency, where he served as a teacher.

When the new Jesuit house of studies, Woodstock College, opened in September 1869 in Maryland, he continued his education there as a member of its first cohort.

[9] In 1886, he began raising money from parishioners to construct a new residence for the priests and Jesuit scholastics of the church and school.

[16] In 1890, O'Kane had begun construction on a new building, without permission from the Jesuit superiors, to accommodate the school's growing student body.

During McGurk's presidency, the consultors[b] of the Jesuit province determined that the school would have to take on $150,000 of debt to complete construction.

He continued to petition the Jesuit Superior General for permission to take on additional debt to complete the building, which stood unfinished for two years.

It contained a swimming pool, gymnasium, running track, the president's office, laboratories, classrooms, a museum, a library, dormitories, and an 800-seat theater.

[23] During the graduation ceremony of 1895, while trying to resume the exercises indoors after it had begun to rain,[22] McGurk suffered a stroke.

[22] On July 3, 1896, at approximately 5:50 p.m., McGurk died at St. Theresa's,[4][24] the Jesuit retreat house and villa in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, on what is now Pope Beach on Sconticut Neck.