Patrick Kelly (bishop of Waterford and Lismore)

Kelly was born at n in Maudlin Street, in Kilkenny, to Matthew and Anastatia Nowlan Kelly. He was sent to a classical school at Lisdowney in 1793, and to the Old Academy in 1795. In 1797, he entered the St. Patrick's College in Lisbon.[1] He was ordained to the priesthood on 18 July 1802.[2] For the next two years he served as Professor of Philosophy at the College.

Kelly returned home 15 August 1804, and, being in delicate health, remained with his parents during the following twelve months. He then served as a curate in Inistioge. In the early part of 1808 he was assigned to The Rower, a small village in County Kilkenny. He was Professor of Philosophy in the Maudlin Street College from September, 1811 to Summer 1814, and then at St Kieran's College at Birchfield until summer 1815. As well as teaching lay students, St Kieran's was both a minor and major seminary. On the appointment of his Uncle, Dean Nowlan, to the pastoral charge of Windgap and Dunnamaggan, in August, 1815, he succeeded him as Professor of Theology, and he became President of the College on the death of Father Quinlan in 10 November 1816.[3] He served as both the President of the college and the Chair of the Theology Department until the summer of 1820.

On 19 July 1820, Kelly was appointed the first Bishop of the newly erected Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, in the United States.[2] He received his episcopal consecration on the following 24 August from Archbishop John Thomas Troy, O.P., with Archbishop Daniel Murray and Bishop Kyran Marum serving as co-consecrators.[4]

He sailed from Dublin on 9 October, and arrived in New York, after sixty days, on 24 December. With a stop to visit Henry Conwell, Bishop of Philadelphia, Kelly proceeded to Baltimore, where he received a somewhat cool reception from the Metropolitan bishop Ambrose Maréchal.[2] "He did not receive me over kindly," he wrote his brother, "and tried to persuade me it would be dangerous to take possession of my See; but his arguments did not satisfy me, and I arrived Norfolk on 19th January."[5]

Kelly took up residence at Norfolk, where there was a greater number of Catholics than at the episcopal see in Richmond, in January 1821.[6]

During his brief two-year-long tenure, Kelly opened the first Catholic school in the diocese and engaged in missionary efforts.[7] However, due to jurisdictional differences with Maréchal, the Holy See decided to transfer him and Kelly was appointed Bishop of Waterford and Lismore in his native Ireland on 9 February 1822,[4] and later died there at age 50 of inflammation of the lungs. He is buried in the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, Waterford.