Roman Catholic Cardinal. A native of Glebe, Norman Thomas Gilroy was the second of six children born to a couple of Irish descent. Attending the convent schools of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, the Sisters of Charity, and the Marist Brothers, he interrupted his brief schooling to work for an estate agent at the age of twelve and ultimately left the following year. Joining the postmaster general's department as a telegraph messenger, he passed the telegraphist examination after a year and in 1912 was appointed to Bourke in the state's far west. With his parents refusing to give him permission to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force in the Great War, he volunteered for transport service as a telegraphist, sailing for Egypt in February 1915 as junior wireless officer. Back in Australia, Gilroy was ordered to resume his duties as a clerk at Lismore, New South Wales. There he came under the influence of the cathedral administrator, Msgr. Terence McGuire, founding president of the Manly Union, an association of priests from St. Patrick's College who wanted the "Australianisation" of the Australian Church. McGuire asked Gilroy if he had thought of the priesthood. He replied that he had, but had rejected it on the grounds of his own unsuitability and his family's financial straits. McGuire reassured him on the first point and promised to find a way around the second. In 1917, Norman went to St. Columba's Seminary and Foreign Missionary College in Springwood, to begin studies, but in 1919 was transferred to the Pontifical Urban College of Propaganda Fide, Rome. Ordained priest on December 24, 1923, he earned a doctorate in theology the following year. Appointed to the staff of the apostolic delegation in Sydney upon his return the following year, in 1930 he returned to Lismore as secretary to Bishop John Carroll. Named bishop of the diocese of Port Augusta in south Australia at the early age of thirty eight, Gilroy received his episcopal consecration on March 17, 1935 in Sydney. Nominated coadjutor with right of succession to Archbishop Michael Kelly for the metropolitan see of Sydney on July 1, 1937, Gilroy succeeded to the archdiocese on March 18, 1940. Pope Pius XII created him cardinal priest in the consistory of February 18, 1946, with the title of Ss. Quattro Coronati, becoming the first Australian born to be elevated to the Sacred College. Through his many interventions by the end his tenure in 1971, 366 Catholic schools in Sydney were educating 115,704 pupils. The first Roman Catholic cardinal to receive a knighthood since the English Reformation, in December 1970 he welcomed his friend Pope Paul VI on the first papal visit to Australia. Retiring from the pastoral government of his see in July 1971, the Cardinal retired of St. John Vianney's Villa in Randwick under the care of the Little Sisters of the Poor. He passed away at Lewisham hospital after a history of frail health.