Patrick Joseph Dillon

Rev Patrick Edward Joseph Dillon (1841 – 11 June 1889)[1] was an Irish Catholic priest, missionary in Argentina, politician and founder of The Southern Cross newspaper.

Dillon received his early education at school in Banagher, County Offaly and then entered the missionary seminary at All Hallows College, Dublin and was ordained priest on 25 October 1863.

According to Thomas Murray, Dillon was "much more popular with the rich than with the poor among his countrymen, and at that time [1877] there was a very considerable number of the two classes of our people in the Capital.

He was too much in politics for a city Chaplain" [Thomas Murray The Story of the Irish in Argentina, 1919, New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, page 397].

Fr Dillon died in Dublin on 11 June 1889, age 48, and is buried at Glasnevin Cemetery,