1787–1841
Founder of the Sisters of Mercy, one of the most widely distributed religious orders of nuns in Ireland
The nineteenth century saw a massive increase in the number of Irishwomen opting for the life of the religious. In 1800 there were only eleven religious houses across the country, containing about 120 nuns; by 1901 this had grown to 368 houses and more than 8,000 nuns. There were several reasons for this. Famine was endemic in rural areas, but the Great Famine in the mid-nineteenth century changed the very structure of land ownership. Firstly, it wiped out one whole class of people – the cottier, or poor subsistence farmer who rented his land from a slightly better-off smallholder. Secondly, the old custom among smallholders of dividing their land equally among sons gave way to the English custom of primogeniture, whereby the eldest son inherited everything. This meant younger sons got no land at all, which in turn meant they could not afford to marry. As well as this, there was increasing emigration, an option often preferred by young marriageable men. All of these factors resulted in more single, celibate women than ever before in the general population. To such women, living in a religious community, informal or otherwise, where there was support, status and intellectual stimulation, was a whole lot better than living in a society where they were the eternal daughter and drudge of the house, with the low status, huge responsibilities and lack of fulfillment that that entailed.
Catherine McAuley, the founder of one of the world’s most successful religious congregations, did not quite fit into this category. For a start, she was not poor. Her father was a wealthy, charitable and devout self-made man named James McGauley. When he died, Catherine’s mother, Elinor, perhaps mindful of the disadvantages of being a Catholic, abandoned her husband’s religion in order to raise her three children as Protestants. She also changed the family name to McAuley because it sounded more fashionable.
When Catherine was eleven her mother died and the family went to live with a Protestant family, the Armstrongs. They persuaded Catherine’s brother and sister to change religion, but were unable to budge the stubborn Catherine from her Catholicism. While she was living with the Armstrongs she met other wealthy relations, the Callaghans, who had just returned from India. Mrs Callaghan took a shine to the fair-haired, blue-eyed, nice-mannered girl and asked her to live with them. Around 1803 Catherine and the Callaghans moved into Coolock House in Coolock village, County Dublin.
Through the ups and downs of the family custody arrangements, Catherine had held fast to her religion, practising it alone and in secret. At Coolock, Mrs Callaghan was a Quaker while, on religious matters, Mr Callaghan did not care one way or the other. Though they both looked down on ‘Romish superstition’, as they called Catherine’s religion, the Callaghans were more tolerant than the Armstrongs and Coolock House was not a bad place for a Catholic. Catherine was quietly able to receive religious instruction once again. In addition, Catherine also found herself deputising for Mrs Callaghan, a semi-invalid, in her charitable efforts in the village. This was Catherine’s first real contact with the poor and she loved being able to help. She grew to admire and respect the villagers’ innate courage and devotion to God in the midst of mass unemployment and poverty.
This was how Catherine lived over the next twenty years: enjoying a privileged though precarious position at Coolock House and stubbornly practising her religion alone. She taught catechism to the local children and needlework to young girls. She also attended to Mrs Callaghan’s ever-worsening health with such love and devotion that, on her deathbed, Mrs Callaghan converted to Catholicism. Before Mr Callaghan died, three years later in 1822, he too converted. In his will he left Catherine his whole fortune – in today’s money about £750,000. Relations tried and failed to contest the will.
Now Catherine could put her plan into action. Like her father, she wanted to give practical help to the poor so she came up with the idea of a ‘house of mercy’ where they could receive support. She consulted various priests, sold Coolock House and bought a site on the corner of Baggot Street and Herbert Street in Dublin’s city centre. The site, right in the middle of that fashionable part of town, was not an accident – she did not want the poor to be invisible. The cornerstone was blessed in 1824 and the House of Our Blessed Lady of Mercy was officially opened in 1827.
Catherine gathered like-minded women around her in a lay community that had religious values. The women helped or taught the poor, lived in the house and dressed uniformly. Their central tenet was mercy to the poor and they were meant to deal with needs as they arose, be they educational or medicinal or spiritual. They fed the destitute every day, accommodated orphans, gave safe lodging to poor working girls and nursed victims during the cholera epidemic of 1825. Importantly, all the women were free to return home at any time. In addition to the responsibilities of running her institution, Catherine took on the rearing of her sister’s five children after her sister’s death in 1827.
The Baggot Street house was confusing to Catholic Dublin. Catherine insisted it was not a convent, despite appearances, because the women were free to leave. She faced great opposition from the priests of the parish. They not only found it difficult to pigeonhole this lay community with its outward religious appearance, but also found it slightly scandalous for a single woman to own and run an institution of any kind.
In 1829 Catholic emancipation was granted and Catholics were once again free to practice their religion openly. Catherine was given an ultimatum by the archbishop of Dublin: either she could abandon the religious appearance of the Baggot Street community or she could place it and herself under the clergy’s jurisdiction. On condition that she would still be free to work outside among the poor, Catherine agreed to take orders so she could start her own congregation. She began her training at George’s Hill Presentation Convent, Dublin, in 1830.
This was not an easy period in Catherine’s life. At fifty years of age, she was used to her independence. She hated spending those fifteen months away from her work on Baggot Street, and nearly gave up. However, she persevered and in December 1831 she and two colleagues took their vows as the first Sisters of Mercy. Reinstated at Baggot Street, Catherine became Mother Superior and welcomed new novices. The following year her order gained papal approval.
The charismatic Mother Catherine was not above using her personality and social position to help her cause. Where she wasn’t welcome as a nun, she made sure she was welcome as a gentlewoman; Daniel O’Connell described her as ‘queenly’. Other accounts of her describe her as magnetic, with an abundance of charm and humour. Her social position meant that she found it easy to recruit among the well-to-do, and many of the novices of the Sisters of Mercy were, in fact, rich young heiresses. She insisted that if these heiresses were to convert comfortably into Mercy Sisters they had to be ‘gentle, humble, patient, hard-working, obedient, charitable but, above all, simple and joyous’.
The Baggot Street premises flourished and a second Mercy convent soon opened in Dún Laoghaire. After this there was a demand for Mercy institutions all over Ireland, in places as far afield as Tullamore and Birr, County Offaly, Charleville, County Cork, Booterstown, County Dublin, County Carlow, County Limerick, County Galway and County Wexford. Two convents opened in England: Bermondsey in 1839 and Birmingham in 1840. The Irish bishops liked the scattered nature of the operation: the lack of centralisation and flexibility meant more autonomy to the local bishop.
Worn out by hard work, Mother Catherine died in November 1841, but her congregation has carried on to be the largest in the world. In 1990 Pope John Paul II declared Catherine McAuley ‘Venerable’, an important step on the road to sainthood.