1. Diocese of Toowoomba
History Placemats

2. POLDING + HANLY
Pic 1: Archbishop Bede Polding
Pic 2: Convicts arrive in Moreton Bay
Pic 3: Cat-o-nine tails
Pic 4: Convict ship
Pic 5: Elizabeth St – place of the first school
Pic 6: St Stephen’s chapel would go on to become a school
Pic 7: Fr James Hanly first Qld priest travelled on horse back
Pic 8: Ireland – from where most new Qld Catholics came from.

3. “…with the exception of Ipswich and Brisbane, the Catholics in these parts are few in number. In course of my visitations the numbers have been 10, 20, 40…those thirty or forty miles apart, the intermediate spaces, as regards human beings, being unoccupied…”
Archbishop Polding
Bishop Polding, 1858.
Quoted in Turner, 112 Vol 1.

4. Bunya nut pine representing local Darling Downs Aboriginal groups - Jarowair and Giabal people inhabited the wider ‘Darling Downs’ region, who celebrated at Bunya Mountains with the bunya nut gathering
Archbishop Polding, Australia’s first Bishop came to visit the area - Eton Vale – where he possibly said the first Mass on the Downs
1853 Father McGinty of Ipswich made pastoral visits on horseback to western parts of his parish and visited Toowoomba, including Toowoomba Catholics. ( community raised money towards expenses of a priest for Toowoomba.Fr Michael Renehan preached in the Town Hall 21st September 1862
1863 St Patrick’s Church School was built on the current Cathedral grounds (p.2 West of the Range by Father James Joseph Weimers)

5. On climbing a low stony ridge in our way it was really with the greatest satisfaction that we perceived we had approached within two miles of the Downs, and as small patches or strips of mist extended throughout their whole length, and a line of swamp oak stretched along their south-western extreme, it was clearly shown us that these extensive tracts of timberless lands were not wanting in water.’
Alan Cunningham, diary entry 5th June 1827

6. Dr. Robert Dunne became parish priest of Toowoomba
Dr. Robert Dunne became parish priest of Toowoomba. In 1869 Fr Dunne re-opened St Patrick’s School and a second school was commenced at Irishtown (Harlaxton) in Later became Bishop of Brisbane in He came to Toowoomba in 1895, as Archbishop to open and bless the second St Mary’s Church in Drayton. Fr Dunne was concerned with the welfare of this mainly Irish parishioners, encouraging them to purchase land as he believed this would stablise families and help eliminate alcohol problems.
James Byrne was chosen as the first Bishop of Diocese of Toowoomba and he began to plan for the transformation of St Patrick’s church to that of a true Cathedral. 24th March, 1935 – St Patrick’s Cathedral was opened. (
On May 28th, 1929, the Holy See issued a decree erecting Toowoomba Diocese, and on 1st September that year, our first Bishop, Most Rev James Byrne, was consecrated in St Patrick's Church, from then known as St Patrick's Cathedral. (
Map of the Diocese (Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office)
Mary of the Southern Cross – patroness of the Diocese (

7. “…It is a great day for Toowoomba, a great day for its people, a great day for the Church of God…..
Bishop Byrne on his consecration as the first Bishop of Toowoomba 1932

8. Education :
Establishment of schools & country parishes
Parishes and schools were established in the towns and the country was worked through visiting and gathering the people at Mass on stations or country churches.
Sisters of Mercy, Josephites and Good Samaritans and the Christian Brothers staffed the schools and visited the country children. Mary MacKillop (
Our Lady of the Assumption Convent Warwick built in picture from (
St Finbarr’s School, Quilpie (Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office)
In the 1990s Sister Anne Maree Jensen, a Presentation sister – the flying Nun – called regularly on outback families. (

9. “…Remember we are but travellers here.”
Mary MacKillop 1866

10. Current:
St Patrick’s Cathedral (
Bishop McGuckin (
Toowoomba Diocese Youth in Poland for WYD (picture courtesy of Diocese of Toowoomba)
Pope Francis (
Pic 1:

11. “…You too, dear young people, can be joyful witnesses of his love, courageous witnesses of his Gospel, carrying to this world a ray of his light.”
Pope Francis, World Youth Day 2013