Patrick O'Donnell (cardinal)

infobox cardinalbiog


name = Patrick Cardinal O'Donnell
religion = Roman Catholic Church
See = Armagh
Title = Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh
Period = 19 November 1924 – 22 November 1927
Successor = Joseph Cardinal MacRory | post = Bishop of Raphoe | cardinal = 14 December 1925 | date of birth = 28 November 1856
place of birth = Kilraine, Glenties, Co. Donegal
date of death = 22 November 1927
place of death = Armagh, Northern Ireland infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name = Patrick Cardinal O'Donnell
dipstyle = His Eminence
offstyle = Your Eminence | See = Armagh

Patrick Joseph Cardinal O'Donnell (28 November 1856 – 22 November 1927) was an Irish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Armagh from 1924 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1925.

Early life

Patrick Joseph O'Donnell was born in Glenties, County Donegal in 1856. He was ordained a priest on 29 June 1880, He was educated in the High School, Letterkenny, the Catholic University, Dublin (1873-'75) and St Patrick's College, Maynooth. He was ordained to the priesthood on the 29th June, 1880. In that same year he was appointed to the staff of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, holding the chairs of Dogmatic and Moral Theology. In 1884 he became dean of the revived post-graduate Dunboyne Institute and in 1885 was awarded his STD. From his desk in Maynooth he poured out a continuous stream of articles on moral theology and canon law.

Church leadership

He became Bishop of Raphoe on 26 February 1888. When he was the youngest in the world at the time and was consecrated by Cardinal Logue on 3rd April in Letterkenny. With superior qualities of mind and body, he was a benign figure who was yet gifted with sharp political acumen. He had the most distinguished episcopate, locally and nationally. He undertook and completed prodigious building projects: a superbly-sited neo-gothic (with Romanesque details) cathedral, overlooked by a house for bishop and clergy (1891-1901); St Eunan’s Diocesan College (1906); the Presentation Monastery and Loreto schools and an extension to Loreto Convent, all in Letterkenny.

He was appointed coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh on 14 January 1922 and succeeded Michael Cardinal Logue on 19 November 1924. On 14 December 1925 Pope Pius XI made O'Donnell a Cardinal.

Activism

He took an active part in the social, political, and economic life of Ireland. A staunch activist for social justice, as Bishop of Raphoe, he was a member of the first Committee of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, founded by Sir Horace Plunkett, and was referred to by Plunkett's close in-law cousin, Elizabeth, Countess of Fingall, in her memoirs in the following terms "Many people say that Dr. O’Donnell had the biggest brains of his Church, and even outside it, in Ireland".

O'Donnell motto at the Vatican

As a Cardinal, visiting the Holy See and the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, he would have been seen his O'Donnell family motto In Hoc Signo Vinces there. The motto appears prominently placed on the Scala Regia as a motto on a sculpted ribbon unfurled with a passion cross to its left, beneath a window overlooking St. Peter's Square. The emblem of the Cross and this motto, have been the main O’Donnell arms, in various forms, through the centuries.

Final years

Cardinal O'Donnell died on 22 October 1927 in "Ara Coeli", the Archbishop's palace.

The St. Connell's Museum in his home town of Glenties has a display about his life.

References

* "Seventy Years Young, Memoires of Elizabeth, Countess of Fingall", by Elizabeth Burke Plunkett, Lady Fingall. First published by Collins of London in 1937; 1991 edition published by The Lilliput Press, Dublin 7, Ireland [ISBN 0 946640 74 2] . This Elizabeth, was a Burke from Moycullen in County Galway, who married the 11th Earl of Fingall, and should not be confused with Elizabeth O'Donnell, 1st Countess of Fingall. See page 226 for reference to Cardinal O'Donnell