OUR MARIST HERITAGE

As we prepare to farewell our Brothers, we thought it timely, over several editions of the newsletter, to profile some of the Brothers and members of the clergy who have made outstanding contributions to the College. This final instalment is dedicated to the energetic Father Joseph Phelan, who with his own hands helped build Saints.

Phelan House is named after Father Joseph Phelan OSA (1880-1973). He was born on 3 April 1880 in Ireland and was received into the Augustinian order of priests in 1899.  Fr Phelan was ordained in 1905, left for Australia soon after and served in Far North Queensland for the next 30 years. He was an excellent mathematician and a very intelligent man.

Fr Phelan celebrated Mass and cared for his parishioners in Mareeba for 10 years. He was a courageous and practical man, tall, well-built and physically fit. While living in Mareeba, he visited the coastal communities on his motorbike offering Mass with the parishioners in Port Douglas and Mossman.

He was brought to Cairns after the 1927 cyclone to help the church rebuild. During his 10 years in Cairns, he organised and helped build schools, the Bishop’s House and the original building of St Augustine’s College. In 1928 an agreement to establish and provide Brothers as teaching staff and to build a school for boys was signed with the Marist Brothers. 

The timber from the Cathedral destroyed in the cyclone was transported by Fr Phelan to Draper Street and used to build St Joseph’s Church and School, now the McLaughlin Theatre. Downstairs was divided into three classrooms in 1930. So much was Fr Phelan associated with building that his fellow priests nicknamed him “Brickie”.

Fr Phelan could be seen with sleeves rolled up, nailing the planks for the formwork for the concrete and mixing and pouring it as well as any other building jobs required. Many of the parishioners in those days were waterside workers at the Cairns docks. When there were no ships in town Fr Phelan recruited the “wharfies” to be labourers on the various constructions. He was a man of immense personal drive and had a gift for stimulating enthusiasm for projects. 

His working bees continued after the building was completed and a start was made to fill in the swampy back section of the schoolyard near Severin Street. The Cairns Catholic community generally, and especially St Augustine’s College, owes a great debt of gratitude to Fr Phelan for the enormous amount of work he did in the early years. In a practical sense he could be rightly said to have built St Augustine’s. His extraordinary contribution is well remembered through the achievements of the interhouse sports team, PHELAN.

The crest for Phelan shows a large Celtic (Irish) cross, signifying his Irish origins. Two hammers denote his enormous energy in personally building churches and schools, including St Augustine’s original building, now Tolle’s and the dormitories above. 

The motto AUDACES FOTUNA JUVAT translates as fortune favours the bold.