Darragh was on the staff of St Cyprian's Church in Kimberley from at least 1881, when he contributed an article to the Quarterly Paper of the Free State Mission.
In 1883 he was teaching at the St Cyprian’s Mission School accommodated in a tin house in Clarence Street, Kimberley: Darragh taught "the half-castes who nearly all spoke Dutch".
In 1898 he was responsible for the establishment of an Anglican school for boys, the St John's College, with his curate the Revd J.L.
Whereas many English-speaking people were expelled from Johannesburg during the Anglo-Boer War, Darragh, as a priest, was allowed to remain and did so.
[3] An Anglo-Catholic opposition to the 1920 South African edition of the Book of Common Prayer was led by Darragh.