The Basin Record Newsletter Vol.6 Issue 3

Published by the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History CBIRH Newsletter : Vol. 6 No. 3 Reverend Henry Irwin was born in the Wiclow mountain region of Ireland in 1859. He was educated at Oxford and graduated in 1881. At Oxford, he became interested in missionary work for the Anglican Church. In 1885, he arrived in British Columbia. The Bishop for the diocese of New Westminster sent him to work in Kamloops to minister to the CPR workers laying track. It was in Kamloops that he met the woman whom he would marry, Frances Innes, who was visiting her sister and brother in law, also an Anglican minister, Reverend A. Shildrick. They were soon engaged. In 1887, Father Pat followed the CPR work crews to Donald. He became very well liked in the community by Anglicans and others. He was able to raise funds to build a church in Donald within the year. St. Peter’s Church, “the stolen church”, still stands in Windemere. In January 1890, He married Frances Innes at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Esquimalt. Father Pat became the assistant to the bishop of New Westminster. The young couple’s happiness was short lived. She died three days after giving birth to a still born son in November of the same year. In January 1896, Father Pat arrived in Rossland -at that time a rough and tumble town of saloons and miners. At first he held services in the opera house. Father Pat also ventured down the hill to the growing town of Trail and held services there. Father Pat was soon able to build St. George’s in Rossland while St. Andrew’s in Trail was built in 1899. Father Pat traveled extensively throughout the southern interior from Granite City in the Similkameen through the Boundary and West Kootenay to Fort Steele and Cranbrook. He also had a licence to minister in Washington State from the Bishop of Spokane and likely ventured there as well. He was a good athlete and was well liked in many mining camps. Father Pat asked to continue missionary work and was sent to Fairview in the Okanagan in 1900. A mining town between Penticton and Oliver. The hard life of a missionary had taken its toll on Father Pat. Bishop Dart sensing that Father Pat needed some rest convinced him to travel home to Ireland in late 1901. Father Pat never made it home; he died January 13, 1902 in the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Montreal. Father Pat was much loved. In Rossland, the miners collected money for a memorial to Father Pat. The memorial was built in 1903 and still stands today at the corner of Queen Street and Columbia. The miners also purchased an ambulance wagon in 1902 dedicated to Father Pat which is on display at the Rossland Museum and Discovery Centre. When a new Anglican church was built in 1910, it was dedicated to the memory of Father Pat. Basin Biography 0266.0001 2276.0307