(January 1, 1828 – December 20, 1904) was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, in the United States from 1889 to 1904.

[1] In 1850, as a seminarian, Phelan was recruited by Bishop Michael O'Connor of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, to serve in the United States.

[2][3] After his ordination, Phelan was assigned to a mission in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, but returned to Pittsburgh later that year to assist during a cholera epidemic.

During the absence of Bishop John Tuigg in 1881, Phelan he was appointed administrator of the Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, and he was subsequently made vicar-general.

The people of many nationalities who were coming in large numbers to find work in the mines and mills of Western Pennsylvania were formed into regular congregations, supplied with pastors who could speak their own languages.

[3] Richard Phelan died on December 20, 1904, at age 76, at St. Paul's Orphan Asylum in Pittsburgh.