Patrick Geoghegan

Orphaned at the age of 8, non-Catholic relatives of his father first sent him to a Protestant institution, before a Franciscan priest temporarily placed him in an orphanage.

[2] Geoghegan was assigned to Adam and Eve's Church, on Merchants Quay, Dublin, where he had earlier served as an altar boy.

In December 1838, Geoghegan arrived in New South Wales, where he spent some time before Polding appointed him first resident priest at Port Phillip.

Geoghegan was undismayed and initially slept on a pallet set on beer barrels in the bar of a public house.

[4][5] With a priest at Port Phillip, the number of Catholics in the area attending services increased, and the small weather-board chapel the people had been using for prayer, proved insufficient.

Saint Mary MacKillop, founder of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, was baptized and confirmed at St Francis' Church[6] The first Solemn High Mass was celebrated on 17 March 1843, which was also the occasion of the first St. Patrick's Day parade which walked in procession from the Royal Hotel to the church.

On the death of Bishop Murphy of Adelaide, in April 1858, Geoghegan was appointed his successor in the see, and was consecrated on 8 September 1859.

[9] In June 2017 a statue of Fr Patrick Geoghegan by sculptor Darien Pullen was unveiled outside St Francis' Church, Melbourne.