Monsignor Patrick Joseph Whitney (1894–1942), was an Irish priest who in 1932 founded the Saint Patrick’s Society for the Foreign Missions known as the Kiltegan Fathers.

Whitney was born in Ballyfermoyle, between Keadue and Lough Key in County Roscommon, on the borders with County Sligo and County Leitrim. He was educated locally and at St. Mel's College, Longford.

Patrick Whitney

He was training as a priest in Maynooth College for the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise when on the invitation of Bishop, Joseph Shanahan, he volunteered as a priest in Nigeria where he went with Fr Thomas Roynane in the 1920s. His cousin Fr Patrick Francis Whitney was one of the first three members of the society.

Patrick Whitney

In 1939 due to ill health, he returned to Ireland and was replaced as Prefect Apostolic of Ogoja in Nigeria, by future Bishop Thomas McGettrick.

Patrick Whitney

References

1894 births

1942 deaths

Alumni of St Patrick's College, Maynooth

Christian clergy from County Roscommon

20th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests

People educated at St Mel's College