The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Moore, Right Rev. James
Moore, Right Rev. James, D.D., R.C. Bishop of Ballarat, was born in Listowel, Kerry, in 1834. After a preliminary training at the Collegiate School in Tralee and a six-years' course at All Hallows Missionary College, Dublin, he was ordained to the priesthood, and left immediately for Australia, arriving in Melbourne in Jan. 1859. He was soon appointed to the important pastorate of St. Francis' Church, Lonsdale Street, in that city, but, owing to failing health, took charge of the less onerous parish of Keilor. There he remained until 1865, when Archdeacon Shiel having been appointed Bishop of Adelaide, Dr. Moore succeeded him as head of the Ballarat Mission in Victoria, being appointed dean, and accompanying Archbishop Goold to Rome in 1873, when Pius IX. made him D.D. On the erection of Ballarat into a separate diocese he was appointed Vicar-General, and on the death of Bishop O'Connor, in 1883, the Pope, who had made him one of his domestic prelates and a monsignor in 1881, first named him administrator of the diocese, and then nominated him to the succession. He was consecrated on April 27th, 1884.