* A Catholic Priest

REV PATRICK MAGENNIS (Pastor of Yass 1849-1857)

He baptised Timothy Joseph Coffey in December 1850.

Father Magennis succeeded Charles Lovat as Pastor in July 1849. He was born in Waterford city about 1812 the son of John Magennis and Ann (Foley) of that place. His father John was a hemp rope and flax manufacturer of moderate means. Patrick Magennis arrived at Sydney on 31st December 1838 on the ship "Francis Spaight" as a student of Holy Orders. He was in the company of Vicar General Dr William Ullathorne and other priests recruited by Dr Ullathorne including Fr Geoghegan who was soon to be the pioneer pastor of Port Phillip.

After short periods of study and service as a cleric in Sydney he was ordained deacon on 18th October 1840.He had studied for some time in 1839 at St Mary's Seminary under Fr Charles Lovat. From December1841 to April 1842 he assisted Fr Geoghegan at Melbourne where the name of Patrick Magennis features frequently as the celebrant of baptism in the early register there. After priestly ordination at Sydney in September 1843 he served at Maitland and New-castle until his transfer on 20th July 1849 to Yass where he served continuously until May 1857 when he moved to Berrima. In 1861 he was replaced at Berrima by Rev William Lanigan and moved to St Bedes parish Appin. There he died suddenly in 1866 and was buried in the churchyard close by the church door.

On leaving Yass he was given a testimonial of 146 pounds by the people of Yass, Jugiong, Burrowa, Bogolong and Binalong. Various anecdotes concerning his ministry have been handed down, eg, the meetings for friendly company and sacramental absolution arranged at central venues between Fathers Magennis (Maitland), Rigney (Port Macquarie) and Hanly (Brisbane). Patrick Magennis is considered to be the first priest to have celebrated Mass in the little settlement of Wagga Wagga. He narrowly escaped the disaster of the 1852 Murrumbidgee flood at Gundagai. He also began arrangements to build churches at Burrowa and Tumut but did not see them completed.

His departure from Yass was hastened according to the clerical historian "John O'Brien" by an incident at Burrowa which brought some disciplinary action against him by Archbishop Polding. The difficulty centred upon an incident in which Magennis offended some Burrowa parishioners who sought his attendance upon a man injured in a boxing match. Fr Magennis was angered by their non-attendance at Mass in favour of fisticuffs behind the pub. He had no sympathy for the injured man and told the Burrowa supporters so in very plain terms. "John O'Brien" wrote of Magennis:

He was a big strong man with hair as black as coal and plenty of it. He had a bright wit which could also bite and a hot temper which sometimes carried him away.

The generous testimonial indicates however that he had some loyal supporters on his side.

Fr Patrick Magennis had with him in the colony an older sister. She was residing with him at Berrima when the newly arrived Sisters of Mercy passed through there to Goulburn in 1859. She became the second postulant to join that Goulburn community in about 1861 as Sister Patrick giving long devoted service to the community.

His widowed brother Joseph Magennis born 1820 came also to the colony about 1852 and remarried soon after. The marriages were to:

(1)Bridget Cody—in Ireland. She died perhaps in childbirth in Ireland. Their baby daughter died aboard ship according to one family tradition.

(2)Ellen Sheahan of Jugiong in 1852. The issue of the second marriage were Ann, born 1852, married 1874 to Lawrence Roche. Patrick J., born 1854, married 1897 to Ann Elizabeth Hall.

Joseph Magennis died unexpectantly aged 35 or 36 on27th December 1856. His widow Ellen (Sheahan) remarried to Richard Julian of Bookham or "Bogolong". The son Patrick J. Magennis became a well known grazier at "Bloomfield" Yass and sometime after 1910 he settled on Jeir Station. The move was occasioned by the land resumptions and developments linked with building the Burrinjuck Dam.

A list of 80 subscribers to the Catholic Church Building Fund (1837) at Yass has survived. While it can be safely assumed that most are Catholics, at least 10 were not. Many of them were settled far beyond the limits of Yass, as for example, Ned Ryan and Roger Corcoran at Galong and Burrowa. The majority of the names were not to endure in the district and some of them would certainly be lonely convict shepherds or emancipist labourers who never married.

The donors of windows in St Augustine's Church repre-sent a group of families or individuals who became established members of the Yass Mission. The names are Coen, Dawes, Grogan, Kearns, Moore, Murray and Roche.

Source:http://www.liturgyhelp.com/lithelp/images/cust/aus_canb_p1143/clergy.pdf