{"id":255527,"date":"2026-01-21T04:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T04:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/255527\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T04:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T04:29:14","slug":"religious-order-leaves-cork-after-200-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/255527\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious order leaves Cork after 200 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 200 years of service in Cork, looking after the poor and educating them, the Religious Sisters of Charity (RSC) are withdrawing from the city as the order is dying out.<\/p>\n

But the Friends of the founder of the order, Cork-born Mary Aikenhead, are determined to keep alive the history of this pioneering woman who was born into a wealthy family in Daunt Square off Grand Parade. She was deeply affected by the poverty she witnessed and determined to do something about it.<\/p>\n

Mary Aikenhead (1787-1858) was the daughter of a Protestant doctor, David Aikenhead, of Scottish origin, and Mary Stacpole, a Catholic from a well-off background. At the time, in a mixed marriage, the children had to be reared in the Protestant faith.<\/p>\n

\"AA plaque dedicated to Mary Aikenhead, foundress of the Religious Sisters of Charity, in Daunt’s Square, Cork. Picture: Denis Scannell<\/p>\n

Frail and possibly asthmatic, it was recommended that Mary be fostered by a nanny, Mary Rourke, living on higher ground on Eason\u2019s Hill, Shandon. The nanny was a devout Catholic, and it is thought that young Mary was secretly baptised as a Catholic by her.<\/p>\n

When Mary was about nine, she began to spend a lot of time with her maternal grandmother, where she was exposed to Catholic beliefs and practices. Her father had a deathbed conversion to Catholicism, and Mary was formally baptised a Catholic in 1802.<\/p>\n

\n While staying with a friend, Anna Maria Ball in Dublin, Mary witnessed widespread unemployment and poverty and began to accompany her friend, visiting the poor and sick in their homes.\n <\/p>\n

\" Portrait of Mary Aikenhead, on the altar a the eucharistic celebration in thanksgiving for the presence of the Religious Sisters of Charity in Cork 1826-2026, at St. Finbarr’s South Church, Dunbar Street, Cork. <\/p>\n

Mary, while active as a charity worker, failed to find a religious institute devoted to charitable work. With the help of Archbishop Daniel Murray of Dublin, who was a friend of Anna Maria, she set up the RSC, having been a novice from 1812 to 1815, at a convent in York.<\/p>\n

On September 1, 1815, the first members of the new institute took their vows. Added to the three traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience was a fourth vow; the members would devote their lives to the service of the poor.<\/p>\n

The first RSC convent opened in North William Street in Dublin. Mary opened a school in Gardiner Street. (She would go on to establish St Vincent\u2019s Hospital in Dublin in 1834 with Archbishop Murray).<\/p>\n

In November 1826, members of the order came to minister in Cork, where typhus fever and cholera were rampant. Two hundred years later, there are just two retired sisters left in St Anthony\u2019s on St Mary\u2019s Road on the northside, which replaced St Vincent\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\"MarionMarion Healy is one of four women in Cork who are Friends of Mary Aikenhead<\/p>\n

Marion Healy was principal of St Vincent\u2019s Primary School in Cork for 14 years, having worked in the school for 20 years before that. She retired in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no religious sisters involved in St Vincent\u2019s primary and secondary school anymore and there hasn\u2019t been for many years,\u201d says Marion. \u201cI was the first lay principal. At that stage, the sisters had decided they couldn\u2019t keep going in the schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is one of four women in Cork that are Friends of Mary Aikenhead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to meet, and we go to Dublin occasionally to liaise with the sisters there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marion says Mary was influenced by the parable of Dives and Lazarus, which is about a rich man who won\u2019t give anything to poor Lazarus begging at his gate. This seals the rich man\u2019s ultimate terrible fate.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cMary Aikenhead had ideas far ahead of her time. She really believed in being trained and went to a convent in York for that. She could have joined the Presentation Sisters or the Ursulines, but she didn\u2019t want to because they were enclosed orders. Her vision was to go out onto the streets to help people. And the only alternative was to start an order with the help of Archbishop Murray.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"AA group of visiting Australians in Cork on the Mary Aikenhead trail.<\/p>\n

Another Friend of Mary Aikenhead is Breda Galvin, who taught business studies and later, religion, at St Vincent\u2019s Secondary School.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very impressed from the outset with the pastoral care by the sisters of the students,\u201d says Breda. \u201cIt was uppermost in the ethos of the school. Some students who may not have had all they needed would be looked after quietly. People wouldn\u2019t be aware they were getting help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Ita Duggan and Marion Healy, both Friends of Mary Aikenhead at the eucharistic celebration in thanksgiving for the presence of the Religious Sisters of Charity in Cork 1826-2026, at St. Finbarr’s South Church, Dunbar Street, Cork. <\/p>\n

Breda became a Friend of Mary Aikenhead when the sisters \u201cwere becoming fewer in number and there were fewer sisters coming to teach in the school\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"BredaBreda Gavin became a Friend of Mary Aikenhead when the sisters \u201cwere becoming fewer in number and there were fewer sisters coming to teach in the school\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She added: “I suppose the writing was on the wall for a lot of religious sisters. I was aware of a very active Friends of Mary Aikenhead group in Harold\u2019s Cross in Dublin where the hospice is. They said it would be nice to have a group in Cork. A small group of us became Friends. Today, visitors come to Cork to do the Mary Aikenhead trail. It\u2019s actually quite humbling when you meet a group of 20 people coming over from Australia to walk in the footsteps of Mary Aikenhead when she lived in Cork.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breda is saddened by the closure of the RSC, but says it\u2019s inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re very practical about it. A lot of the services the order provided are now provided by the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that Mary Aikenhead\u2019s story is kept alive. I hope that we\u2019ll be taking local people on the Mary Aikenhead trail, which takes in Eason\u2019s Hill, Daunt Square (where her home was in what is now Morleys), Christchurch (now part of Triskel) where her parents were married, and Rutland Street (where the Aikenhead family moved to.)\u201d<\/p>\n

Ita Duggan, a Friend of Mary Aikenhead, was the home\/school liaison co-ordinator at St Vincent\u2019s for 17 years.<\/p>\n

She is saddened by the cessation of the RSC in Cork. \u201cIt\u2019s the end of an era,\u201d says Ita.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople on the northside of Cork are particularly proud of Mary Aikenhead. Her motto was: \u2018The love of Christ inspires us\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 200 years of service in Cork, looking after the poor and educating them, the Religious Sisters of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,12785],"class_list":{"0":"post-255527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-religion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}