Quinn Nuns

When the “Celebration of Life – The Family of John and Mary Byrne” was written in 1999, reference was made to four sisters who became nuns and as such were destined to spend the rest of their lives in far distant lands, separated from each other and their family and friends. Only one of the Sisters ever returned to Ireland for a visit.

These four sisters, who were daughters of Henry and Eliza Quinn, were the aunts of Mary Byrne and on page 16 of the family book a short pen picture was given for each of them. This was never regarded as being sufficient information about them and efforts were made to establish what had inspired them all to make this big decision and also to look at the background of how and when they left home and how their lives turned out from then on.

This exercise not only produced some very exciting results, but also led on to an extensive research into the family of their mother, Eliza Mullee / Molloy, who came from Manor Kilbride Co. Wicklow. This was set in motion when contact was made with the Sisters of Mercy Archives in Australia, seeking any information they may have had regarding the life and times of Sister Xaviour (Lizzie) and Sister Kieran (Bridget). The response from Sister Mary Ryan of the Sisters of Mercy, Bathurst Congregation provided a lot of information that added greatly to the story. She also told us that a very similar enquiry seeking information about the two Sisters had come from Ms Corinne Biersdorff, in the city of Preoria, in the State of Illinois in the U.S.A.

Sr. Ryan sent us a copy of the reply that she had sent to Corinne with the following comment. “I hope she does not mind my releasing her address to you, but I have always found that people doing the same family history are delighted to be put in contact with one another.”

Delighted indeed we both were at this very unexpected development and Corinne’s feelings are expressed in the initial e-mail she sent me, giving her family connection with the Quinn family. Her Great Grandfather Michael Molloy who had emigrated from Kilbride to America in 1868, was Eliza’s brother and the nun’s uncle.

Sister M. Ryan’s information led us to Callan in Co. Kilkenny, where many years ago the Sisters of Mercy had established a unique Missionary School where girls desiring to become nuns could be educated and prepared to enter Convents in Missionary Countries.

On the 7th of January 1884 the first candidates – aspirants, as the girls were called, were enrolled in the school. This school for future nuns flourished and it was the only institution of its kind in the English Speaking world. In the seventy odd years of its existence approx. 2,000 young women attended this preliminary novitiate for religious life. Not all of them for the Mercy Order.

It was to Callan that Lizzie Quinn, at the tender age of seventeen years, went on the 25th of Nov. 1889, just as she told it in her letter to her first cousin James Molloy in America, many years later, in 1946.

Next to leave home was her elder sister Jane, on the 7th of December 1891, at the age of 22 years. As the records we got from Sister Hannah Frisby in Callan shows, Lizzie had left for Australia before Jane arrived to begin her preparation for the Missions in New Foundland. Both of them were to spend their long and fruitful lives teaching the children of the thousands of Catholic workers that went to those distant lands, where they found countries in the infancy of their development, which they helped to shape into what they have become today.

Their younger sister Bridget also joined the Mercy Order, but in a different manner than Lizzie or Jane. She arrived in Australia in Nov. 1902, at the age of 26 years, being one of a group of 30 girls who had offered themselves for the Brisbane Mission, in response to a visit from Mother M. Bridget Conlon and Mother M. Audeon Fitzgerald, who had come to Ireland seeking postulants. Bridget was destined to spend her long life, for a time at least we are told by her sister, minding orphan children who may well have been the native Aborigines that were taken from their families, to be trained in the ways of the emerging nation. Or perhaps they were some of the orphans and children sent to Australia from Britain, under the Child Migrants Programme, often without the knowledge of their parents.

In general her religious life was spent in the simple, humble household duties of the convents where she resided, in Toowoomba and Charleville in the west of the diocese.

So we come to Katie, the youngest and the last of the sisters to join a Religious Order. At just 20 years of age and having been bridesmaid at her brother John’s wedding to Annie Mackey, she left to join The Irish Good Shepherd Sisters and she was destined to join the missionary operations of the Order in India.

The Good Shepherd Sisters had arrived in India as far back as 1853, at the request of a local Bishop and most of them were Irish girls from different parts of the country. We don’t know what inspired Katie to make this decision but it has been suggested that perhaps she heard from a Bishop from India seeking volunteers or the local priests in her parish were telling her about the mission in Bellary and off she went.

A question to Sister Hannah as to why she thought so many girls were joining Religious Orders in those days, brought the following reply: “I can only say that anyone who was socially minded found scope for their wishes to help others by entering a Religious Order. Also Religious life was thought to be a higher state where Heaven was assured; alas we have changed our opinions on that over the years.”

The following pages will give a more extensive insight into the life experiences of these 4 brave girls, who set off for the great unknown. It is easy to say “Ballinahown to Brisbane”, but achieving that task was anything but easy. For these 4 sisters, none of whom had ever travelled far from their home in the Irish countryside, the journeys they were destined to make to Australia, India and New Foundland were nothing short of horrendous on ships that were scarcely adequate to allow for the most basic of human existence and taking up to six months to traverse the dangerous seas that afforded little comfort for those on board. They constantly had to be on full alert for the dangers that surrounded them and must have been fearful for their safety from sea faring folk who had little or no respect for the fact that these passengers were any different to anyone else on board. More dangers arose at every port of call and there were many on route where supplies were taken on board by the most unscrupulous of characters, who would be offering all sorts of enticements to gain favours from the unsuspecting passengers. Yet they made it safely to their destinations where they must have gasped in amazement at what they saw and realised the effort that was needed to overcome the conditions that existed in this brave new world.

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