The Shamrock Trail: St Patrick's Church and the buildings that grew around it

Behind Boorowa's church doors sits a story that stretches back to the town's earliest years — a parish shaped in rubble stone, rebuilt in brick, and adorned with glass brought from Ireland. Catholic life in Boorowa predates any permanent church in the town. The Catholic Yass Mission was established in 1838 by Dr Polding, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, and it was Father Brennan who first said mass in Boorowa in 1839, before Fathers Lovat and then Pat Magennis took up the mission. The first St Patrick's Church, built of rubble stone by Irish stonemasons near the Burrowa River, grew slowly. Subscriptions were called in August 1853, with Edward Ryan among the contributors towards the £2000 cost, and the shell of the building was near completion by April 1855, when the first mass was held in the partially finished church. Work continued for years afterward, with the ceiling and school building added by 1858. Bishop Polding returned to Boorowa in October 1863, consecrating the town's Catholic cemetery, and Father O'Neill became the parish's first resident priest in 1865. As the congregation outgrew the riverside church, Father Dunne, appointed to Boorowa in 1872, oversaw the construction of a new St Patrick's Church on Queen Street, completed in 1877. The presbytery beside it dates from 1864, predating this second church, while a convent followed in 1885 (now a private residence) and St Joseph's School opened in 1888. The church is known for its stained glass windows and marble altars. The south windows above the main entrance, imported from Ireland in 1881, depict Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator of Ireland, alongside saints Patrick, Bridget and Columba. The Italian marble altars, donated by parishioner Jeremiah Corcoran, were consecrated in September 1929 following major additions to the church. St Patrick's Church is open daily, its windows still telling the story Boorowa's earliest Catholic settlers began more than 180 years ago.