DOLLARD, WILLIAM (1789-1851)

DOLLARD, WILLIAM, Catholic missionary, Miramichi, 1823-33; first bishop of New Brunswick; bap. Ballytarina, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, 29 Nov 1789, s/o Michael Dollard and Anastasia Dunphy; ordained 1817; d. Fredericton, 29 Aug 1851.

William Dollard attended St Kieran's College in the city of Kilkenny, acquiring both a general education and theological training. In 1816, in response to the recruitment efforts of Bishop Joseph-Octave Plessis, he left Ireland for Quebec, and he completed his training for the priesthood there in 1817. His first missionary appointment was to Arichat on Cape Breton Island, where he served from 1818 to 1822.

Meanwhile, the Catholic inhabitants of the Miramichi were asking for a resident priest. A petition which they drafted in 1822 was signed by ten of their leaders, including James Davidson Sr of Oak Point and Martin Cranney of Chatham. At that time the Miramichi district was embraced within the mission field of Father Thomas Cooke of Caraquet, and no action was taken. But in 1823, on the eve of Cooke's departure, the plea of the petitioners was heard, and Dollard was assigned to a field which extended "from Bartibogue and Escuminac to Boiestown."

When Dollard arrived, the only Catholic houses of worship on the Miramichi were a parish church at Bartibog, where a number of Scottish settlers and their descendants were living, and a tiny chapel at Nelson, where the number of Catholics was growing rapidly on a wave of Irish immigration. The establishment of a new parish at Nelson and the opening of St Patrick's Church in 1826 were Dollard's crowning accomplishments during his ten years on the Miramichi. As one who knew the Gaelic speech of both Ireland and Scotland he was also successful in defusing tensions between the two ethnic groups.

In 1833 Dollard was called to Prince Edward Island, and in 1836 to the St John River, where he served as a missionary until his consecration in 1843 as the first bishop of the diocese of New Brunswick. He moved his residence to Saint John in 1848. He was visiting in Fredericton when he died in 1851.