Patrick Walsh (bishop of Down and Connor)

Walsh was born in 1931 at Cobh, Irish Free State.[1] When he was 11 years old, his RIC father moved the family to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he attended St Marys CBGS Belfast and won university scholarships in both science and literature.

He entered St. Malachy's College as a seminarian, attending Queen's University Belfast. During Philosophy studies at Queen's he was taught by the future archbishop of Armagh, Dr Cahal Daly. He then studied theology at the Pontifical Lateran University, Rome, completed a Licentiate in Sacred Theology and was ordained priest on 25 February 1956.

After ordination Bishop Daniel Mageean sent Walsh for further studies to St Edmund's College, Cambridge (then known as St Edmund's House). He completed a M.Sc. in Mathematics at Christ's College, Cambridge, since St Edmund's was at the time unable to matriculate students of its own. He obtained another M.Sc. in 1962, from Queen's University, for a thesis on group characters.

He was assigned as a mathematics teacher at St MacNissi's College, Garron Tower from 1958 to 1964. He was then chaplain, along with Fr Ambrose Macaulay, at Queen's from 1964 to 1970.

In 1970 he was appointed president of St. Malachy's College and served in this role until he became a bishop in 1983. Thereafter he served as chairman of the board of governors for the college for many years.

In 1983, with Dr Anthony Farquhar he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Down and Connor and was consecrated on 15 May by Bishop Cahal Daly, Archbishop Gaetano Alibrandi and Bishop William Philbin. During the ordination ceremony, the assistant priests to Bishop Walsh were Fr Charles Agnew and Fr Hugh Crossin. He was given the titular see of Ros Cré. His Episcopal Motto is 'Ex Animo Operari', to work with one's heart (Col 3:24).

In 1991, on the elevation of the then Bishop Daly as Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Walsh became the 31st Bishop of Down & Connor.

He was the Principal Consecrator of Bishop Michael Dallat and Bishop Donal McKeown.

He was succeeded as bishop by Monsignor Noel Treanor on 22 February 2008.

Styles of Patrick Walsh
Reference style	The Most Reverend
Spoken style	My Lord
Religious style	Monsignor
Posthumous style	none

• Diocese of Down & Connor
• Patrick J Walsh on Catholic Hierarchy
• Comments by Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship on disobedience by bishops

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