Excerpt from Father Pat: A Hero of the Far West Soon after I arrived in British Columbia, in 1895, Henry Irwin wrote to me from his living in the north of Ireland, offering his services to the diocese. Rossland was then rising into notice as a mining camp, and Irwin, who had been missionary at Golden, and after wards chaplain to Bishop Sillitoe, seemed, from the reports that reached me, to be just the man for the place. Ao cordingly he was sent there, and the result answered my expectations. Very soon a spacious frame building was erected for a church, with rooms in the basement to serve as a lodging for the priest and a club for the men in the neighbourhood. But I do not remember ever finding Irwin in his own rooms. They were always giving shelter to poor people who had been reduced to want, whilst he himself had a shake-down in some friendly bachelor's shack. Nor was he unmindful of the wider interests of the Church, as he showed by taking a prominent part in the measures that led to the erection of Kootenay into a separate Diocese. When Rossland became more civilized and comparatively rich, Irwin left it to take up pioneer work in the neighbour ing boundary country. Here he remained until his health imperatively demanded rest and change. We were all hoping he would return to us in renewed health and strength after a short visit to his friends in Ireland; but God saw fit to order it otherwise. Beams mortuus. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.