NEWBRIDGE HOLY FAMILY NUNS MARK CENTENARY

Leinster Leader 8 February 1975

Newbridge Holy Family Nuns mark centenary

On 8th February 1975, the Holy Family Sisters in Droichead Nua celebrate the Centenary of the Foundation of their first house in Ireland. The story is simple and modest as befits the spirit and life-work of those who have consecrated their lives to the living out of the Gospel in a special way, under the banner of the Holy Family of Nazareth.

The Association of the Holy Family was founded by a young Bordeaux priest, Father Pierra Noailles in 1820 to help remedy the moral and social ills which were the result of the French Revolution. By the year 1875 it was well established in France and had begun to extend its apostolate to the joining countries of Europe, as well as to the mission fields of Asia, Africa and America.

It was no surprise then that, from England, a foundation should be made in Ireland where the Word of the Lord, from the days of the great Saints Patrick and Brigid, had borne fruit in the number of priests, monks and nuns, filled with missionary zeal, who served God’s people of every race and colour in every continent in the world.

From the beginning of the Association the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Sisters of the Holy Family were closely associated because of the bond of friendship that existed between their Founders, the Bishop of Marseilles, Monsignor de Mazenod and Fr. Noailles. It was the Provincial of the Oblates, Fr. Cooke O.M.I. who acted as negotiator between the Bishop of Kildare and the Superioress General of the Association. The result was that one bright May morning in 1875 four foundresses – Mother St. John Day, Sister Gertrude Farrell, Sister Alban Horan and Sister M. Joseph Egan sailed into Kingstown Harbour and were met by Father Cooke who accompanied them to their new home. They were given a very warm welcome by the Parish Priest of Newbridge, Rev. Fr. Nowlan and the kindly people who were pleased that their children were going to benefit educationally from the arrival of the Sisters.

A new Convent, St. Conleths’s Abbey had been built beside the Parish Church to house the new community and the day after installation which happened to be Corpus Christi, the Blessed Sacrament was brought to the Convent Chapel to be a source of spiritual strength to the Sister and the front of all their apostolic endeavor.

When a few days later, Monsignor Lynch, Bishop of Kildare, visited the Parish and the new Convent he told the sisters that they were called to do a great work. The people of Newbridge, he said, were as it were caught between two fires – the Curragh Training Camp with its ten thousand militia and the large Cavalry Barracks in Newbridge and there was plenty of apostolic work to be done. Much water has flowed under the Liffey Bridge since then and though the ‘firing’ may have continued, many changes have taken place in our country. In 1922 the flag of the occupation forces was replaced by the Irish Tricolour, and much of the old Barracks area of the town has been used for the construction of new factories, thus assisting the growth and prosperity of what is generally accepted as one of the most rapidly growing towns in Ireland.

The kindness and co-operation of the local clergy and parishioners were assured to the Sisters from the very beginning and are traditional to the present day. Supported by their good will and encouragement the Sisters threw themselves whole-heartedly into the work assigned to them, the education of the young girls of the district. Their pioneer efforts in this respect were exacting enough, since there were no school buildings such as we see today. There was great jubilation when the Board of Education unexpectedly allowed a grant of £77 for educational purposes and benefactress of the Convent left a sum of £100. The money was used to install a hot water pipe system in the Great Connell National Schools and the Convent.

Alongside the development of the first foundation was a growth in religious vocations thus enabling the Association to open other houses in Ireland for various types of educational and social work. Our register of personnel for the past hundred years is convincing proof of the rich harvest of young Irish girls who have dedicated their lives to the service of God and their fellow men, under the banner of the Holy Family, not only in the Anglo Irish Province but also in the far-flung mission fields of the Third World.

Re-typed by Lydia Potts