Father Frank FlynnPrint Page

The plaque commemorates Father Frank Flynn (1909 - 2000) who was the administrator of the Cathedral from 1949 to 1960.

In 1946 Father Flynn took up duties as Administrator or parish priest of St Mary's, Darwin, a parish covering 300 square miles.  He continued to serve the military as part-time Chaplain and Ophthalmologist to the Royal Australian Air Force, with the rank of Wing Commander.  One of Flynn's first tasks as Administrator was to ensure that the nuns were among the first women allowed to return to Darwin. 

The school was the first to re-open in Darwin after the Second World War and within a few months was functioning again with 230 pupils. Flynn also, to engender new bonds of friendship and community in the war-battered town, purchased three Sidney Williams huts from the Army and had them erected around the tennis courts built from a Catholic Tennis Club in 1928. 

The building, variously dubbed 'The Palais' or 'Flynn's Folly' quickly became the hub of the community, used and hired by people from all denominations until it was demolished in 1970.  A major task facing Flynn and Bishop Gsell after the war was the building of a Catholic Cathedral to replace the old church which had been erected in the late 1880s by the Jesuits. 

A public meeting was held on 18 November 1946 to inaugurate a nation-wide appeal for the building of the cathedral.  St Mary's Start of the Sea War Memorial Cathedral and Shrine of Thanksgiving was opened on Sunday 19 August 1962.  Two thousand people of all denominations attended the blessing by Bishop JP O'Loughlin (qv), and the first Mass was celebrated by Father Flynn.  From 1960 to 1965 Flynn was also Regional Superior of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in the Northern Territory.

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