Patrick Joseph O'Donnell was born in Glenties, County Donegal in 1856, a son of Daniel O'Donnell, a farmer, and his wife, Mary. He was one of nine children in a family that claimed descent from the O'Donnells of Tyrconnell. O'Donnell was ordained a priest on 29 June 1880. He attended Secondary School in Letterkenny, and later studied at the Catholic University of Dublin and at Maynooth. He was ordained to the priesthood on 29 June 1880. In that same year, he was appointed to the staff of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, holding the chairs of Dogmatic and Moral Theology. In 1884, he became dean of the revived post-graduate Dunboyne Institute and in 1885 was awarded his STD. From his desk in Maynooth, he poured out a continuous stream of articles on moral theology and canon law.
Church leadership
He was appointed Bishop of Raphoe on 26 February 1888, making him the youngest bishop in the world at the time and was consecrated by Michael Logue on 3 April 1888 in Letterkenny. O'Donnell undertook, and completed, a prodigious building project in his diocese - the superbly-sited neo-Gothic cathedral, overlooked by a house for bishop and clergy ; St Eunan’s Diocesan College ; the Presentation Monastery and Loreto schools and an extension to Loreto Convent, all in Letterkenny. He was appointed coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh on 14 January 1922 and succeeded Cardinal Michael Logue on 19 November 1924. On 14 December 1925, Pope Pius XI made O'Donnell a Cardinal.
O'Donnell motto
As a Cardinal, visiting the Holy See and the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, he would have been seen the motto In Hoc Signo Vinces that was earlier adopted by the O'Donnell Earls of Tyrconnell in 1603-14. The motto appears prominently placed on the Scala Regia as a motto on a sculpted ribbon unfurled with a passion cross to its left, beneath a window overlooking St. Peter's Square. An armorial achievement with a cross on the shield and this motto were recorded during the reign of King James VI & I by the Ulster King of Arms as those of Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, based on the earlier adoption of the cross and motto by the O'Donnell rulers, as described in the Lebhar Inghine i Dhomhnaill.
