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Patrick Slattery - Dean of Cooma

Copied from  Centennial History of NSW 1888 (Barbara Adams)

Dean Patrick Slattery is a native of Ireland, and was born in County Kerry in  1836

After receiving a primary education at one of the diocesan classical schools, he in 1857

Passed to the famous Irish College in Paris and for two years prosecuted his studies

There.  In 1859 he was transferred by Dr Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry, to Maynooth College Ireland, where he continued his ecclesiastical education with great success for a

Period of six years.  During his course he had the honour to be a class fellow of Dr. Walsh, the celebrated Archbishop of Dublin, and of Archbishop Carr of Melbourne.

Although originally intending to devote his services to the Irish Church, Dean Slattery elected to go on the foreign mission and accordingly in 1864, in company of Dean Healy

Of Bega, sailed for Australia.  Some months after his arrival in NSW, he was appointed the first missionary priest of Bega and Twofold Bay.  Remaining in these districts for

A period of  ten years, Dean Slattery showed much zeal in the cause of his church , as the edifices, which he caused to be built at Pambula, Bega and elsewhere amply testify.  In the year 1875 he was transferred from Bega to St Benedicts Sydney, where for the following three years devoted his time and earnest attention to the dissemination of religious instruction.  In 1878 he was again removed and transferred to the district, where he now lives- Cooma Here he has a large field of labour allotted him and he is unflagging in his perseverance for the spiritual welfare of the people.  A convent erected in Cooma at a cost of six thousand pounds and a number of other religious establishments, with a handsome presbytery, owe their origin to his zeal, advocy and labors.  On the occasion of the late Archbishop Vaughan visiting Cooma in 1883, Dean Slattery was created.