The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Dunne, the Most Rev. Robert
Dunne, the Most Rev. Robert, D.D., Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, was born near Clonmel, co. Tipperary, Ireland, in 1833. He received his preliminary education at the Grammar School at Lismore, and went thence to Rome, to pursue his ecclesiastical studies. He entered the Irish College in that city, and attended lectures at the Roman University. After a brilliant course he was ordained, in 1855, a priest for the Archdiocese of Dublin. Returning to Ireland, he was appointed a professor in the Seminary of St. Lawrence O’Toole, one of the colleges of the Catholic University of Dublin. The President of this Seminary, the late Bishop O'Quinn, was appointed, in 1859, the first Bishop of Brisbane, and soon afterwards, in 1863, Dr. Dunne went out to Queensland as a priest of the diocese of Brisbane. He officiated in Brisbane until 1868, when he was appointed parish priest of Toowoomba, which office he held until 1881, when he left on a visit to Europe. In 1869 he was created a Doctor of Divinity by a brief of Rome. He returned from Europe at the close of the year 1881, and found letters from Rome appointing him Bishop of the Roman Catholic see of Brisbane, then vacant by the death of Dr. O'Quinn. Dr. Dunne was consecrated Bishop of Brisbane, by the late Archbishop Vaughan, in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Brisbane, on June 18th, 1882, and was created Archbishop of Brisbane in 1887, by papal brief.