In 1843 Bishop of Kerry, Dr. Egan, asked Mother Elizabeth Moore, Superior of the Convent of Mercy, Limerick, to send Sisters to Killarney. His own interest in the spiritual and social welfare of the poor, sick and uneducated of his people and the help from a wealthy couple, Mr. and Mrs, Gallwey, urged him to make the request.
St. Brigid’s Convent 1844-1857
The preliminaries were completed and on 2ndOctober, 1844 Mother Elizabeth Moore, who had been professed by Catherine McAuley, brought the first Sisters to Killarney. A few weeks later Mother Elizabeth and her companion returned to Limerick, leaving Mother de Sales Bridgeman as Superioress and the other Sisters in St. Brigid’s, the house in High Street secured and furnished for them by Mrs Gallwey.
During the Famine years the numbers of sick seeking refuge in the town were so great that new arrivals had to be placed on straw along Henn Street until space was made available for them in the temporary wards in the unfinished Cathedral and in Brewery Lane.
The principal duty that devolved on the Sisters in the beginning was the visitation of the sick. The lanes and alleys teemed with poor people all anxious to be visited in their sickness and wants by the Ladies of Mercy, as they styled the new nuns. Owing to the bounty of the Earl and Countess of Kenmare and the generosity of their agent, Mr. Gallwey, Mr. Drennan of Dromhall and many of the neighbouring gentry, the Sisters were able to relieve numbers in their own homes and distribute bread and soup at the convent several times a week.
Eleven young Sisters succumbed to fever and died in those years. One of the first to die was Sr. Joseph Tobin who was born in 1806, in Grange, Co. Tipperary. She entered Convent of Mercy Limerick 1 November 1843. On 1 October 1844 she came to Killarney. She was professed in Killarney on the 1st September 1845 and died a few weeks later on the 26th September.
The deaths of many parents in the typhus fever epidemic made it necessary for the Sisters to open an orphanage, a small hut in a yard adjoining the convent which had been built in 1849.
During the early years in High Street the Sisters taught in a school called St. David’s, which formerly belonging to the Franciscans. Later, Lady Gertrude Kenmare built a temporary school near their Convent in High Street. That school became known to the pupils as “Flaggy Hall”. From the beginning several young girls entered the community but a number of them died after a short time. In the first decade of its existence this convent lost eleven young efficient members. So many continued to be attacked with consumption that the Superior, Mother M. de Sales Bridgeman, resolved to build a new Convent, knowing how inadequate to the wants of the community the present house was.
Holy Cross Convent 1857
The site for the new Convent was granted by the Earl of Kenmare and it was built at the expense of the community. On the 2nd.July 1857, the Sisters moved from St. Brigid’s, High Street, to their new Convent. It is a very handsome structure, in the Pugin style, on an elevation overlooking the town and has an extensive lake and mountain view. It was called Holy Cross in memory of the frequent deaths that robbed the community of its most valued members. Read more
Southern Province 