Ms. Catherine McAuley (1787 – 1841) of Dublin, Ireland built a large building at 64A Baggot Street for the purpose of educating and caring for women who needed shelter and protection.
She sought to shield them from the many unsolicited demands directed towards them, especially if they were not living in their own family situation. Catherine had recently inherited money and property from her adoptive parents, William and Catherine Callahan, and used that inheritance to build the large four-storey building in a fashionable part of Dublin. With the assistance of a small group of young women she founded the Institute of Our Lady of Mercy and opened the House of Mercy on September 24, 1827.
Within a couple of years of operation Catherine yielded to the advice of her spiritual director that she and her colleagues would have more credibility and support in Dublin society if they were a religious congregation. Catherine and two companions entered the novitiate of the Presentation Sisters at George’s Hill and were professed there as Sisters of Mercy on December 12, 1831. This is the foundation day of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy, a Catholic religious congregation of women whose commitment and ministry were focused in service ”to the poor, the sick and the ignorant.”
From the earliest years Sisters of Mercy have spread throughout the world, established institutions and provided leadership, administration and management of educational facilities, hospitals, nursing homes, medical clinics, counselling and social service centres. Thousands of men, women and children were served by Sisters of Mercy in all levels of education, healthcare, social services, prisons, parishes and other areas where poverty and need cried out. Whether in a well-organized and up-to-date institution or in the fields of an isolated part of the world Sisters of Mercy and their collaborators can be found. Today Sisters of Mercy are found on all continents.
The Sisters of Mercy founded a convent in St. John’s Newfoundland in 1842. Three women left the motherhouse in Dublin to found Mercy Convent at Military Road; one of them Marianne Creedon, an Irish woman who had been living in St. John’s, returned to Ireland to complete her novitiate with Catherine McAuley and be prepared as a Sister of Mercy. From the first days of their arrival in St. John’s they taught school and visited the sick and aged in their homes. In the years to follow the Sisters of Mercy were established all over the island and into Labrador and Peru. The “works of mercy” were carried out in schools, healthcare facilities, parishes and in the day-to-day activity of the sisters, where ever they were located. Today we name these ministries as “sponsored ministries” of the Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland.
