John Sullivan embraced in his life the two main traditions in Irish history: both the Anglo-Irish, Church of Ireland tradition and the Catholic tradition. He was the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, studied in Trinty College, practiced as a lawyer in the English bar, and was known as 'the best dressed man in Dublin.' In his mid-thirties, John became a Catholic Jesuit. Most of the rest of his life was spent as a teacher and spiritual father at a boys college in Co. Kildare where he became known as a poorly-dressed man of prayer and penance with a gift of healing. Seventy years after his death people continue to visit and pray at his shrine in Gardiner Street church, Dublin.