Following post-graduate studies at Maynooth he returned to the Diocese to serve as curate in the parish of Currin.
He taught for a time in St Kieran's College, Kilkenny, following which he returned to Clogher Diocese to become curate in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.
He was appointed Professor of Moral Theology & Canon Law in St Patrick's College, Maynooth, in 1904.
While he regularly condemned the actions of the British forces in Ireland and the excesses of the IRA during the Irish War of Independence, he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.
However, he also opposed partition and was specially mindful of the nationalist people of his diocese who were cut off from the new Irish Free State.