The nuns of the Sisters of St Clare order are to leave Kenmare, Co Kerry, after more than 160 years.
In a letter read out to parishioners at Sunday Mass, the Sisters said “regrettably” they no longer had the numbers to maintain a presence in the town.
“As a congregation, we are sorry to be bidding you farewell and we very much hope that the legacy we leave, after 16 decades among you, will be something you continue to value as a parish and community.
“We will carry Kenmare with us in our hearts and prayers always. We ask that you do the same for us.”
Tributes have been flowing in after the unexpected news, which has surprised many in the parish.
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The nuns had arrived at the invitation of Archdeacon Fr John O’Sullivan to a town impoverished after the Famine. As well as their involvement in education, they established a lace-making industry to help lift Kenmare out of dire poverty. Two of the schools they founded – St John’s National School and Pobalscoil Inbhear Scéine – still serve the young people of Kenmare.
It is understood only a small number of sisters remain in the convent.
The current parish priest of Kenmare, Fr George Hayes, said the prevailing emotion is one of sadness. “And shock too for a number of parishioners – they had no sense the presence of the nuns had been coming to an end,” Fr Hayes said on Radio Kerry on Tuesday.
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Although not directly involved in education for some time, “the very presence of the nuns in the town had been invaluable” and should be celebrated, he said. They had arrived at a time of immense poverty and deprivation, and their belief was that if you educated people it set them free.
Even in relatively recent times they had provided cocoa and food in the local school. “These were women of vision. They had tremendous care for the poor,” Fr Hayes recalled. Women of great culture, they had revealed art, culture and music to local people.
One of their founding members, the famous “Nun of Kenmare”, Sr Mary Francis or Margaret Anna Cusack – who was born into a wealthy Protestant Anglo-Irish family – had taken on the local landlord over his treatment of his tenants.
Kenmare lace, a needlepoint lace industry established by the nuns, took the Victorian world by storm and Queen Victoria herself had several pieces.
Nora Finnegan of The Kenmare Lace and Design Centre said the nuns themselves were very talented lace makers, but set about educating themselves in design and art with lecturers arriving from the Dublin and Cork Schools of Art. This was in order to better establish the industry.
Ms Finnegan is calling for the setting up of a museum to celebrate the nuns’ legacy in Kenmare, a call supported by Fr Hayes.