Description
Chicago’s first Archbishop was Patrick Augustine Feehan. Feehan was born in Killenaule, County Tipperary in Ireland in 1829. After moving to the United States, Feehan served as a bishop in Nashville before accepting the Archbishop position in the archdiocese of Chicago. Feehan was appointed archbishop in September 1880 and he served the Church in Chicago until his death in 1902. When Archbishop Feehan came to Chicago, he was faced with a daunting building task. He had to both continue efforts to rebuild Church presence after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and to accommodate rapid influx of immigrants. He dedicated himself to building schools and churches that immigrants could enjoy in their own language. In the first part of his tenure, Feehan oversaw the building of churches for Italian, Irish, German, Polish, and French communities. The most common ethnicity he built for in this time however, was that which shared his heritage, Irish. 10 of the 30 churches built from 1880-1886 were for Irish communities.
The ethnicity of each individual church is shown in the attached image.
Source
Kervick, Francis W. Patrick Charles Keely: Architect, A Record of His Life and Work. Privately Printed: Indiana, 1953
Chicago Daily Tribune. “Death Comes to Aged Archbishop.” Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922), July 13, 1902
