St Joseph’s, O’Reilly’s

Check times with O’Reilly’s Guesthouse (07 5544 0644).

Originally situated at Gleneagle, St Joseph’s was the first Catholic Church in the Beaudesert area and was opened in 1876 on a 4-acre block of land donated by William Rafter. Prior to the building of the church, Mass was celebrated in “Ballymoonie” the home of the Rafter Family, the church was variously known as Tullamore, Veresdale or Gleneagle.

The Church St Joseph’s Gleneagle no longer stands on that 4-acre block but is in regular use in the National Park Resort of O’Reilly’s Green Mountain. From 1934 until 1955 Green Mountains had been a parish Mass station utilising “Goblin Wood” the home of Mr and Mrs Bernard O’Reilly.

By the early 1950’s Saint Joseph’s Gleneagle was falling into disrepair and its congregation numbers were dwindling, as such Fr. Steele reluctantly made the decision to move the church to O’Reilly’s. The church was dismantled by Messrs. J. Nisbet and N. Barker and transported to Green Mountains by Mr Garret Fitzgerald, of Canungra. Others known to have worked on the re-erection of the building were Messrs. Tomkins and Tom Draper.

On November 27^th, 1955, the first Mass was said in the re-erected church by Father Steele and by lunch time, a crowd of some 400 people had assembled to hear Archbishop Duhig perform the opening ceremony, after which Mr Bernard O’Reilly recalled riding 14 miles to Kerry for Mass and of the first Mass held on Green Mountains having been said in the old humpy on Moran’s Creek in 1922 by a much younger Father Steele.

The church building is now owned by the O’Reilly Family however St. Joseph’s still maintains strong links with the Beaudesert Parish of St. Mary’s.