Patrick Joseph Dillon

Patrick Joseph Dillon was born in 1842 at Tuam, Co. Galway, according to Edmundo Murray's dictionary entry; a search summary of the Dictionary of Irish Biography gives Bekan, Co. Mayo, in the archdiocese of Tuam, on 24 April 1841. He was educated at Banagher and All Hallows and ordained on 25 October 1863. In Argentina he was Irish chaplain at Merlo and Cañuelas, made a mission to the Falklands/Malvinas in 1865, taught at the seminary in 1866 and became a canon in 1869. When Fahy died in 1871 Dillon succeeded him as Irish chaplain of Buenos Aires. He opened St Brigid's chapel at La Choza in 1872, became chaplain of the Irish Hospital in 1873 and founded St George's College for well-off boys in 1876. In 1879 he clashed with the Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society over control of its funds.

He announced The Southern Cross by a circular in November 1874, and the first issue appeared on 16 January 1875, produced in The Standard's office. The paper promised a liberal tone modelled on Dublin's Freeman and no attachment to any Argentine party. Murray says that despite the pledge Dillon backed the Irish landed class: in 1879 he led the formation of the General Brown Club, which pressed for Irish political representation, and critics noted it had few poor members. He was elected to the provincial legislature with Autonomist Party backing in 1880 (the DIB summary says 1879) and to the national Senate in 1883.

His 1881–82 mission to Ireland as a provincial and national agent recommended free or assisted passages and land grants. In 1887 his brother John Stephen Dillon and Buckley O'Meara were appointed emigration agents in Europe, paid a bonus for each emigrant landed, and in early 1889 they filled the steamer City of Dresden with emigrants who landed in Buenos Aires to no lodging, food or work. Murray says Patrick Dillon's own responsibility for the affair is still not fully understood.

He died in Dublin on 11 June 1889 and is buried at Glasnevin. In Buenos Aires the Monsignor Dillon school stands opposite Plaza Irlanda, and The Southern Cross is still published.