Gerard Mitchell was a senior Irish Catholic priest, a priest of the Archdiocese of Tuam and President of

Maynooth College St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth (), is a pontifical Catholic university in the town of Maynooth near Dublin, Ireland. The college and national seminary on its grounds are often referred to as Maynooth College. The college was of ...

from 1959–1967. Thereafter he became

parish priest A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

Ballinrobe Ballinrobe () is a town in County Mayo in Ireland. It is located on the River Robe, which empties into Lough Mask two kilometres to the west. As of the 2022 census, the population was 3,148. The town is in a civil parish of the same name. Hist ...

until his death in 1990. Mitchell was appointed Professor of Dogmatic and Moral Theology at Maynooth in 1932, and served as Vice-President from 1958 until his appointment as president in 1959 following the death of Edward Kissane. His time as President of the National Seminary was marked by the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

and an opening up the College to wider Irish life, including the introduction of lay i.e. non-seminarians to the College. In 1966 he welcome veterans of the 1916

Easter Rising The Easter Rising (), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an ind ...

to the College.

References

1990 deaths Presidents of St Patrick's College, Maynooth 20th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests 20th-century Irish educators People from Ballinrobe Place of birth missing {{Ireland-reli-bio-stub