Andrew Byrne was born at Navan, Co. Meath, Ireland, the son of Robert and Margery Moore Byrne. Baptized "Andrew" on December 3, 1802, he may have been born on November 30, the feast of St. Andrew. He was an ecclesiastical student at St. Finian's College, Navan, when, in 1820, Bishop England sought volunteers for the mission of the newly created Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, and he accompanied the bishop to the United States. He was ordained at Charleston, 11 November 1827, and after active missionary work in South and North Carolina, became pastor of St. Mary's in Charleston. He was for several years vicar-general of the diocese. At the Second Baltimore Council, in 1833, he acted as Bishop England's theologian. In 1836 he removed to New York City, where he served at St. Patrick's, and St. James's. In 1841, Bishop Hughes sent him to Ireland to recruit the Christian Brothers to teach in the diocesan schools. Local Catholics had purchased the old Universalist Church, known as Carroll Hall, and Byrne founded St. Andrew Church which then Bishop John Hughes dedicated on March 19, 1842. At the same time, he was called to organize the parish of the Church of the Nativity on 2nd Avenue, which was dedicated by Bishop Hughes on June 5, 1942.
Bishop
While pastor there in 1844, the new Diocese of Little Rock, comprising the State of Arkansas and all of the Indian Territory, was created, and Father Byrne was named its first bishop. He was consecrated in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City, 10 March 1844, at the same time that John McCloskey was consecrated coadjutor of New York, and the Rev. William Quarter, Bishop of Chicago. There were then in Arkansas only about 700 Catholics, with four priests and as many churches. He brought two priest with him, and together they established St. Ambrose Church at Arkansas Post, Arkansas and the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock in about a year. Other parishes were established at Pine Bluff and New Gascony. Bishop Byrne visited Ireland twice to obtain assistants. He persuaded the Sisters of Mercy to come to his newly established diocese. Four sisters and five postulants arrived in 1851 and established a school in Little Rock that would later become Mount St. Mary Academy. They also opened convent schools at Fort Smith and Helena. A fire of suspicious origin destroyed the church in Helena in 1854, as the Know Nothings’ influence grew. Byrne was one of the prelates attending the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore in May, 1846, and the First Provincial Council of New Orleans in 1856. Shortly before his death in 1862, the diocese had grown to include nine priests, thirteen churches, thirty stations, and twelve schools and academies, and had almost completed arrangements for the starting of a college at Fort Smith by the Congregation of Christian Brothers.
