William Gahan

Who was William Gahan?

William Gahan was an Irish priest and author; born 5 June 1732, in the parish of St. Nicholas, Dublin, he died there, 6 December 1804. He entered on his novitiate in the Augustinian Order, 12 Sept., 1748 and made his solemn profession 18 Sept., 1749. Shortly afterwards he was sent to the Catholic University of Leuven, where he commenced his ecclesiastical studies, 1 June 1750. He was ordained priest 25 May 1755, but remained some years longer in the university to obtain his degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1761 he returned to Dublin, and the supply of parochial clergy at the time being insufficient, he was asked by Archbishop Lincoln, and was permitted by his superiors, to take up the work of a curate in St. Paul's Parish. After three years in this capacity he returned to his convent in St. John's Street, where, in the leisure intervals of an ever-active missionary life, he composed the well-known "Sermons and Moral Discourses", on which his literary reputation chiefly rests.

These "Sermons" have gone through several editions; they are characterized not so much by exceptional eloquence as by solid learning and genuine piety. Dr.