The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Geoghegan, Right Rev. Patrick Bonaventure

1380273The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Geoghegan, Right Rev. Patrick BonaventurePhilip Mennell

Geoghegan, Right Rev. Patrick Bonaventure, D.D., second Roman Catholic Bishop of Adelaide, was born at Dublin in 1811, and was primarily educated at Edgworthstown. At the age of sixteen he entered the Irish College at Lisbon, and afterwards joined the Franciscan Order at Coimbra, where he was ordained a priest. After officiating for a few years at St. Francis' Church, Dublin, he volunteered for the mission of New Holland, and was appointed first resident priest of Port Phillip, where he arrived in 1839. The spot where he celebrated the first mass on Victorian soil is marked by a cross in the grounds of St. Francis' Church, Melbourne. When the late Dr. Goold was made first Bishop of Melbourne, he appointed Dr. Geoghegan Vicar-General. On the death of Bishop Murphy, of Adelaide, he was appointed to succeed that prelate in the see, and was consecrated in Sept. 1859. He took possession of the see in the following November, but only held it for about five years, when he returned to Ireland, where he died at Kingstown, on May 5th, 1865.