Patrick Charles Keely

Patrick Charles Keely (August 9, 1816 — August 11, 1896) was an Irish-American architect based in Brooklyn, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. He was a prolific designer of nearly 600 churches and hundreds of other institutional buildings for the Roman Catholic Church or Roman Catholic patrons in the eastern United States and Canada, particularly in New York City, Boston and Chicago in the later half of the 19th century. He designed every 19th-century Catholic cathedral in New England. Several other church and institutional architects began their careers in his firm.

Keely was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, then a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (alternatively another source states it was County Kilkenny), on August 9, 1816, to a family in comfortable circumstances. His draftsman and builder father introduced him to architecture and training in construction, his father worked on the building of St. Patrick's College, Thurles and Patrick was educated there, though nothing is recorded of his architectural design education.

Keely emigrated to the United States, landing at Castle Gardens in Manhattan in 1842, and settling in Brooklyn. He arrived at a time when Catholicism in the United States was expanding from its initial footholds in Baltimore, New York City and Boston. Initially, he worked as a carpenter and builder since there were few trained architects practicing and most structures were erected with the design assistance of the client and builder alone. Common practice held that the builder, whether trained as mason or carpenter, crafted his own plans, and details were often executed without even the aid of drawings. For a number of years Keely worked at his trade without attracting attention. During this time, he met the Rev. Sylvester Malone, a Roman Catholic priest his own age.

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