Background
James McGrath was born on June 26, 1835 in Holy Cross, County Tipperary, Ireland.
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James McGrath was born on June 26, 1835 in Holy Cross, County Tipperary, Ireland.
James McGrath received his early training in the local schools and in the University of Dublin. While a student at the University, he was professed in the Oblates of Mary Immaculate at Inchicor (1855), and the following year was sent to Canada, where he completed his theological studies at the University of Ottawa.
Ordained in 1859, McGrath was assigned to a curacy in St. Patrick's Church, Ottawa, for three years and was then transferred to the Texan missions. In 1864, he returned to Ottawa, where he built the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Subsequently, while attached to the Holy Angels' Apostolic School of Buffalo, he preached missions throughout New York and New England, winning recognition as a preacher in both French and English. In 1870, he was appointed pastor at St. John's Church, Lowell, Massachussets, and there erected the Church of the Immaculate Conception (1872), one of the largest in the archdiocese of Boston. One of the first New England priests to introduce parochial education, he organized a school under the Canadian Grey Nuns of the Cross (1880). In the belief that Canadian control was preventing the normal growth of his community in the United States, McGrath successfully urged the creation of an American province of the Oblate Fathers. In 1883, he was elected first provincial, with authority over the community's churches and monasteries in Lowell, Buffalo, and Plattsburg, as well as in Texas and Mexico. During his administration of ten years, the Sacred Heart house was opened in Lowell, and monasteries were founded in Eagle Pass and Rio Grande, Texas. In 1883, a novitiate was established at Tewksbury, Massachussets, to which in 1888 was added a juniorate for recruiting novices. Three years later, the Provincial transferred the juniorate to Buffalo. On the completion of his term, Father McGrath returned to Buffalo where he was superior of the Holy Angels' Church and Apostolic School, until his sudden death of heart failure in the Albany railway station while on his way to a chapter meeting in Lowell.
There is no information about his personal life.