Alphonsus Cullinan

Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Waterford and Lismore.

Born in Lahinch, County Clare in 1959, he was educated at Crescent College and trained as a school teacher in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick (B.Ed., 1981), teaching for six years in Castleconnell, Co Limerick, and for two years in Spain.

He then commenced his studies for the priesthood in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth where he occasionally visited, along with other students, events in Dublin organised by Opus Dei and the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross. He was ordained into the priesthood in 1994 (S.T.L., 1995). He served in the Diocese of Limerick, and as Chaplin in Limerick Regional Hospital.

In 2001 Fr. Cullinan went to Rome (Pontifical Lateran University's Accademia Alfonsianum, ) to study for a doctorate in moral theology (S.T.D., 2004) returning to Ireland in 2004 when he became Chaplain in Limerick Institute of Technology.

In 2011 he was appointed Parish Priest in Rathkeale, Limerick.

Fr. Cullinan was appointed Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Waterford and Lismore in February 2015 succeeding the retiring Bishop William Lee, and was consecrated in Waterford on 12 April 2015. In November 2015 he spoke in a seminar at Lismullin, the Opus Dei house in Co. Meath on the Year of Mercy.