RECTORS AND PARISH PRIESTS
The first Rector of St Patrick’s Rochdale was Fr Michale Moriarty. Father Richard Campion wrote of him:
"The Rev. Father Moriarty was Rector of the Mission for the very long time of thirty-five years, during which he laboured zealously for the Spiritual and Temporal Welfare of his flock. He had not been long Rector when he was elected a member of the School Board, and in this public position he always strongly advocated the rights and claims of the Catholic population of the town. The name "Dean Moriarty" was a household word; he was highly respected by Catholics and non Catholics alike. He died by meeting with death accidentaly in the City of Nice, being knocked down by a tram car coming in the opposite direction to the one he had just alighted from."
Dean Moriarty was succeeded by FATHER CUSACK (1897 - 1903) and then by FATHER RICHARD CAMPION who was Rector for twenty-five years. He built the magnificent school on Lomax Street which accommodated seven hundred and thirty children.
The foundation stone (which can still be seen) was laid on 7th May 1904 by Bishop Louis Charles Casartelli and the school opened on 5th March 1905. It cost £5,439-10s-00d. (Five thousand, four hundred and thirty-nine pounds and ten shillings).
Fr Campion records that "there was not one penny to hand to build these schools, and the whole of the sum above had to be borrowed from the Salford Diocesan Finance Board at a rate of four per cent." Father Campion also built the present presbytery. He died in 1928 aand was buried in Rochdale Cemetery, close to the present chapel which was, at that time, the Catholic chapel.