As the Sisters of Charity celebrate the 210th anniversary of their foundation, Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh looks back over the history of the order and its founder, Mary Aikenhead.
Every nation has its heroes. Ireland certainly has its fair share. We have sporting heroes, musical heroes, political heroes. Our national memory abounds with images of them. We can think of the Irish international soccer team in an open-topped bus after Italia ‘90, surrounded by crowds of cheering supporters. Or Bono and the other members of U2 whipping a whole stadium into a frenzy. Or perhaps, in a more sombre tone, Patrick Pearse reading the Proclamation of the Irish Republic outside Dublin’s GPO, at the beginning of the Easter Rising.
All these images have one thing in common: glory. The dramatic glory of success or noble failure, in front of a watching world.
Such scenes stir the blood, and are certainly admirable. But most of us, when we reflect, would agree that there is a heroism that rises even above such dizzy scenes. There is the heroism of simple goodness; acts of self-sacrifice and compassion performed, not with the world watching, but in the most obscure and humble of circumstances. The comforting of the sick. The visiting of those in prison. The education of the poor.
In this sense, the Irish Sisters of Charity, celebrating their 210th anniversary this year, deserve to be counted among Ireland’s heroes. This recognition should not go only to their founder Mary Aikenhead (who is now on the road to sainthood) but to the hundreds of nameless and forgotten sisters who dedicated their lives to the welfare of others, especially the poor and needy.
In May of 2020, the media reported that the Sisters of Charity were gifting St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin 4 to the Irish people. The hospital and its grounds were reported to be worth two hundred million euro. The Sisters of Charity would no longer play any role in its administration. This brought to an end an involvement of 186 years.
The hospital was the crowning achievement (and the lifelong dream) of Mary Aikenhead. It was the first Catholic hospital in Ireland, brought into being by a woman who had never wanted to be the founder of a religious congregation. She hadn’t even started life as a Catholic!
Mary Aikenhead was born in Cork in 1787, the daughter of a wealthy Protestant apothecary. While still a teenager, she was deeply influenced by a homily she heard in church. It drew on Jesus’s parable of the rich man who ignored the poor man at his gate. The poor man died, and was carried to his reward by angels, while the rich man went to punishment. Young Mary resolved she would not follow the example of the rich man. She would dedicate her life to the poor.
Although raised a Protestant, Mary spent her early childhood in the care of a Catholic family who lived just outside the city. Her health was poor, and her parents believed the clearer air would benefit her. With this temporary foster family, she attended Mass and said the rosary.
On his deathbed, Mary’s father himself converted to the Catholic faith. Mary became a Catholic shortly afterwards, at the age of fifteen. “I shall never be happy until I am a Catholic”, she had written.
It was quite a brave decision, considering that Irish Catholics at this time (though a majority) still faced legal and social discrimination. Her siblings all followed her into her new faith.
Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own
