Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a continuous influx of Irish Catholics necessitated the creation of a second Irish parish in the city of Ottawa. In March of 1893, John Lancaster Spalding, the first Bishop of the Diocese of Peoria, decided to divide the parish of St. Columba and fixed the boundaries of the new parish, to be known as St. Patrick's parish, to include all of west Ottawa and Ottawa Township, west of the city limits. He appointed as the priest in charge, the 32-year-old Reverend M. A. Quirk, a priest of unusual ability and influence, who lost no time in getting at the task that awaited him.