MOTHER BERNARD KIRWAN'S ANNIVERSARY

Today, 27^th February, marks the 156th anniversary of the death of Mother Mary Bernard Kirwan.  Mother Bernard Kirwan P B V M, religious, pioneer, and educator, is an important figure in the history of Newfoundland.  We who have had the great privilege of being educated by the Presentation Sisters are especially indebted to Mother Bernard!



Mother Mary Bernard Kirwan



According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Julia Kirwan, daughter of James and Ann Kirwan, was born in Galway in 1797.  In 1823, Julia entered the Presentation Convent, Galway.  Known in religion as Sister Mary Bernard, she took her vows there in 1829. 

In 1833 Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming visited the Presentation Convent in Galway in the hope of recruiting Sisters to teach in Newfoundland.  The tremendous work that the Presentation Sisters have done in Newfoundland over the years is proof that to say Bishop Fleming was ‘successful’ would be an understatement!   Four Nuns, including Sister Mary Bernard, volunteered to accompany the Bishop.  Sister Bernard was appointed Superior of the new foundation in St John’s, the first Presentation Convent outside of Ireland.  Thus Mother Mary Bernard Kirwan would become not only the founder of the Presentation Congregation in Newfoundland, but the founder of the Presentation Congregation in the whole of North America.

The group left Ireland on 11^th August 1833 and arrived in St John’s on the feast of St Matthew, 21^st September, 1833.  Despite misfortune and setbacks, the Presentation Order thrived and soon expanded to other parts of Newfoundland.  In September 1853, with Convents already established in Harbour Grace, Carbonear and Harbour Main, a Convent was founded at Admiral’s Cove, Fermeuse, on the Southern Shore of the Avalon Peninsula.  Mother Bernard was appointed Superior of this latest foundation.  It was in Fermeuse, on 27^th February 1857, that Mother Mary Bernard Kirwan passed away.  It was said of her that “She was remarkable for a peculiar sweetness of disposition, exalted piety, unbounded charity, and a burning zeal for the glory of God and the good of her neighbour.  Her death was like her life, most holy.”  

 

Mother Bernard Kirwan was interred in Admiral’s Cove, the little Cove to which she would one day give her name.  Admiral’s Cove was named after the English Fishing Admirals who frequented the Harbour from the1700s.  In 1960 the name was officially changed to Port Kirwan, in honour of Mother Bernard Kirwan.  In this pretty little Cove, Mother Bernard’s name is revered and her memorial is lovingly tended.  Sr Mary Magdalen O’Neill, who died at Fermeuse on 27^th October 1871, is also commemorated at this site.



This Stone has since been replaced

 I am greatly indebted to a most wonderful man, my friend Ed O’Neill.  Ed O’Neill, a devoted son of Admiral’s Cove/Port Kirwan, is an historian, photographer, chronicler, preserver and lover of all things ‘Fermeuse’.   Ed has come upon a very unusual piece of our history which he generously shares with us here. 

Ed says, “Here are a couple of photographs of Mother Bernard Kirwan’s walking stick.”  He continues; “Mother Kirwan lived in Port Kirwan from 1853 to 1857 when she passed away.  She must have had knee-joint problems and required the use of a cane.  The cane was made by a Mr Walsh from Riverhead, Fermeuse, a well-known carpenter.  I borrowed it from one of his great-grandchildren who still have it in their possession.”

Mother Bernard's Walking Stick

Being a history buff, I am delighted with this bit of information and with the accompanying photographs.  Thank you so much, Ed.  Your kindness is greatly appreciated.

THE LADY WITH THE LANTERN

Honora Nagle (known as Nano) was born in 1718 in Ballygriffin, near Mallow, County Cork. She was descended from a Norman Baron who founded an Irish Augustinian priory. Her father, Garret, was a wealthy landowner. Her mother, Ann, was from a prominent Tipperary family and a relative of the famous parliamentarian, Edmund Burke. In Ireland at that time, Penal Laws, designed to keep Catholics poor, uneducated, and oppressed, made it unlawful to open a Catholic School or to travel abroad for an education. Despite the Penal Laws, the Nagles had managed to keep most of their wealth and, through family connections, were able to send, discretely, Nano and her sister Ann to Paris. Here they received a thorough Catholic education. They also enjoyed the gaiety of life in Parisian Society! Early one morning Nano and Ann were in a cab, returning from a Ball in that great city. They came upon a group of poor people huddled outside a church door, waiting to attend early Mass before going to their work. Nano compared her own privileged lifestyle to these poor people. The scene so disturbed her that she decided to do something to help the poor.

In 1746, Garret Nagle died and Nano and Ann returned to Ireland to live with their mother in Dublin, where there was widespread poverty. One day Nano was looking for a piece of valuable Parisian silk, which Ann told her she had sold and given the money to the poor. Nano was profoundly touched by this and years later, said that it was this that had decided her vocation. She returned to Paris with the intention of consecrating her life to God in a cloistered order where she could pray for the poor. However, her very perceptive Jesuit Confessor advised her to return to Ireland and work for the poor and deprived in her homeland.

She went back to Cork and lived with her brother, Joseph. In Cork, she rented a mud cabin in Cove Lane and, in secret, set up her first school for the poor. Her aim was to provide these poorest of the poor with a sound religious education as well as an all round education that would help them to make their way in life. Nano had received a substantial inheritance from her Uncle Joseph and she used this to finance her charitable work. When her money ran out, she became a beggar for her beloved poor. Her charitable work did not stop at providing schools for the poor. She went out to them in the hovels and alleyways of Cork bringing them as much help and succour as she could. After her long days in the schoolroom, night would often overtake her as, with her lantern, she made her way home through the dark.

To give her schools more permanency, Nano brought some Irish Ursulines from France to teach in Cork. For various reasons, this was not a success and, though Nano never lost her love for the Ursulines and continued to help them financially, she began to think of setting up her own congregation of religious sisters. This congregation came into being on 24th December 1775. Nano’s preferred title was ‘The Sisters of Charitable Instruction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus’. After Nano’s death, and with Papal approval, the name was changed to the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (P B V M), by which they are still known today. Although Nano and her little group received the religious habit on 24th June 1776, it was not until 1800 that the Sisters first wore religious dress in public. Nano, the congregation’s first superior, chose the name of Sister Saint John of God but, under prevailing Penal Laws, she was known officially as Miss Nagle.

The Latin words on the Nagle Coat of Arms roughly translated as ‘Deeds Not Words’ and Nano certainly lived by this motto! As well as long hours in prayer, Nano engaged in every work that would alleviate the misery of the poor. However, regarding the work, she told her Sisters “We must prefer the schools to all others”. So it was that Nano Nagle blazed the trail and inspired great educators such as Edmund Ignatius Rice and Catherine McAuley who followed in her footsteps. In 1782, a Relief Bill allowed Catholics, for the first time since 1695, to open their own schools. Of course, this had conditions but it did go some way to realizing Nano’s dream when her secret schools could at last operate openly.

In 1769, Nano had written to a friend, “If I could be of any service in saving souls in any part of the globe, I would willingly do all in my power”. True to her missionary vision, the Presentation Sisters, beginning in 1833, spread to every continent. Nano Nagle died, aged 65, on 26th April 1784. Today, all over the world, her spiritual daughters, the Presentation Sisters, continue the work of their holy foundress. Nor is she forgotten in her native Ireland! In 2005, an Irish newspaper poll voted Nano Nagle the greatest Irish woman of all time. In 2002, in a similar poll, she had been voted greatest Irish person of all time.

Links to this post:  THE FIRST PRESENTATION CONVENT OUTSIDE IRELAND