Fr Pat arrived in June 2000. In the short time he has been here he has added a personality and vitality that reflects the increasing number of younger families now in the parish. His charismatic charm, friendliness and dynamic approach are bringing about a great re-awakening.

Father Pat was born on 22 September 1931 in Rathnew, Country Wicklow, Ireland, the fifth son of seven boys born to Lill and John Doran. He entered the Holy Ghost Missionary College, Kimmage Dublin, in 1949, and undertook overseas training in Trinidad where he taught at St Mary's High School, Port of Spain, for three years before his ordination in Dublin in 1959. In 1960 he was posted to Nigeria where he worked until his capture and imprisonment during the Biafran War and famine. He was deported back to Ireland in 1968. Four months later he was sent to the island of San Paulo, 300 miles off the Nigerian coast, where all the food and medical supplies for Nigeria were stockpiled. He was a member of a team of four Holy Ghost priests who co-ordinated famine relief flights into Biafra. The team conducted up to 24 flights nightly. One part of his job was to check on the distribution of all medical and food supplies to the clinics in Biafra (a three-day task every three weeks). Father Pat left just before the collapse of Biafra on 9 January 1970.

The next two years were spent teaching in Ireland before four years as Vocation's Director in Canada and four years in Malawi on the east coast of Africa. Father Pat was sick for most of the following year. He was then posted to Papua New Guinea for a total of fifteen years, eight at Aitape and seven at Wewak.

He has worked tirelessly on all aspects of church life in Dorrington since arriving in mid-2000, apart from two trips home to Ireland, due to the loss of two beloved brothers, Myles and Sean. The involvement of so many parishioners in parish life, especially the young people, attests to his abilities to draw our community together at a time when such events as the 2003 Synod is at hand.

Taken from "Something Beautiful For God" - Marcia Logan