John Creagh

John Creagh (Thomondgate, Limerick, 1870 – Wellington, New Zealand, 1947) was an Irish Redemptorist priest who is best known for delivering anti-Semitic sermons in Limerick in 1904 which incited riots against the small Jewish population in the city.

In 1906, in the Philippines where he had been sent as a missionary, he had a nervous breakdown. A year later he was posted to Wellington. By 1914, he was in Australia and, in May 1916, when he was rector of the Redemptorist monastery in Perth and when the German Pallotine missionaries had been interned, was appointed vicar apostolic at Broome in the Kimberley region. He was parish priest at Bunbury (1923-5), Pennant Hills (1926–30) and Waratah where he suffered a stroke. After recovering from the stroke, he spent the rest of his life conducting retreats and preaching. He died at a monastery in Wellington.

In 1915, A. O. Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines argued that the Catholic mission at Lombadina should be closed because the property of 20,000 acres (8100 hectares) belonged to a Filipino from Manila, Thomas Puertollano, who was married to an Aboriginal woman and was technically employing the Aborigines. This was a breach of regulations as ‘Asiatics are not allowed to employ Aborigines’. When Creagh was appointed to the Kimberley region, his brief included safeguarding the mission from threats from the Department of Aborigines and Fisheries and Immigration. Creagh’s brother and a partner bought the land for £1100 and the lease was transferred from Puertollano to Creagh’s brother. Creagh thought highly of Puertollano, writing that he was "a man to whom I am under the greatest obligations. He was the former owner of Lombadina and for years he kept the Mission there going".

...
Wikipedia