Daniel Delany

Daniel Delany DD (February 1747, in Paddock, Mountrath, Laois, Ireland – 9 July 1814, in Tullow, County Carlow) was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. Educated at the Irish College in Paris, he taught at the English Boys College of St Omer, 265 kilometres north of Paris.

In 1783, Delany was appointed coadjutor to James Keeffe, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. Together, they established St. Patrick's, Carlow College. Delany later founded the Brigidine Sisters in 1807, and the Patrician Brothers in 1808.

Early life He was born in 1747, the first of two sons, into a farming family on the Castlecoote Estate. His father Daniel and younger brother John died when Daniel was still young. Delany attended the local Hedge school at Briscula, just a few kilometres from his home. His mother, Elizabeth Delany (née Fitzpatrick) sent him to her sisters, who had a shop in the nearby town of Mountrath, to gain a better education.

As the public practice of Catholicism was outlawed by British Law at the time, in 1763, with the help of a good Protestant friend, the sixteen-year-old Delany was smuggled out of Ireland to Paris to study for the priesthood at the Irish College in Paris. He was ordained a priest around 1770. For the next five or six years Delany taught rhetoric at the English College at Saint-Omer in France.

Father Delany returned to Ireland in 1776 or 1777, disguised as a layman since priests were still outlawed. He was so appalled at the state of Ireland that he was tempted to return to France.

Soon after arriving, he was stationed at Tullow as assistant priest to Bishop James Keeffe. Catholic education in Ireland had been denied to the people of Ireland since the seventeenth century; in consequence, much of the population suffered from poverty, hunger and drunkenness. Delany tried to bring back the traditional Catholic education to the community. He started by the establishment of Sunday schools for the youth of Tullow. He also formed a youth band to help teach his students hymns. Soon older people in the community started to join these classes.

Bishop In April 1783, Delany was appointed Coadjutor to Bishop James Keeffe of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin, Delany Building at St Joseph's College, Echuca, Victoria, Australia. Delany House at Brigidine College, Indooroopilly, Brisbane, Australia.

The Delany Archive which holds the archives of the diocese of Kildare & Leighlin, the Patrician Brothers, Brigidine Sisters and Carlow College is located in Carlow College The Patrician Brothers in Sydney named the Delany Foundation after him.