George Michael Lenihan

Rt. Rev. George Michael Lenihan OSB (11 September 1858 – 10 February 1910) was fifth Catholic Bishop of Auckland (1896–1910).

George Michael Lenihan was born in 1858 in London to Irish parents who died while he was a child. Aged 14, he entered the Benedictine College at St Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate under the Abbot Alcock whose associate was Father Edmund Luck. After four years there he went to St Edmund's College, Ware to study for the priesthood for the Westminster Archdiocese. He then studied philosophy and theology at the English College at Valladolid, Spain.

In 1882 when he was sub-deacon, he was invited to accompany Bishop Edmund Luck to New Zealand and on 27 August 1882 he was ordained a priest, " ... being the first student of the Ramsgate College to be ordained to the secular priesthood".

When he arrived in Auckland in 1882, Lenihan was appointed as curate to Monsignor Walter McDonald at St Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland where he remained for more than three years. In 1886, he was appointed pastor of Ponsonby, which he found without either church or presbytery. A new church for Ponsonby was blessed six months later, and opened within the year. Lenihan was also entrusted with the charge of the Star of the Sea Orphanage at St Mary's. In 1891 he was appointed as "irremovable rector" of Parnell.

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