In 1815, Mary Aikenhead founded the Religious Sisters of Charity. In the 1820’s and 1830’s the work of the Religious Sisters of Charity grew and expanded from Dublin to Cork, and to Australia in 1838. This work included the establishment of schools, hospitals and orphanages for people in need, and the visiting of the poor, especially the sick in their homes, and those in prison. After Mary Aikenhead’s death in 1858, her vision continued to grow and spread in Ireland, England, Scotland, California, Venezuela, Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi & Australia.

(Ref. rscmaheritage.com)

• Our Foundress

  Mary Aikenhead, foundress of the Religious Sisters of Charity, was born on 19 January 1787 in Cork City, Ireland. She died on 22 July 1858 in Harold’s Cross, Dublin.

• First Convent

  Following Mary’s training at the Bar Convent in York, the Congregation of the Religious Sisters of Charity was founded and the first convent opened in North William Street, Dublin in 1815.

• Prison Ministry

  In 1821 the Governor of Kilmainham Gaol asked for sisters to visit two young women who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The Governor was so impressed by the sister's influence on these women that he asked that they would continue to be involved in prison visitation. To this day, prison visitation is an important ministry for the Congregation.

• First School

  At the request of the Archbishop of Dublin, the Sisters of Charity opened their first school in 1830 in Gardiner Street, Dublin.

• Cholera Epidemic

  In 1832 there was an outbreak of Asiatic cholera in Ireland. A temporary hospital was set up in Grangegorman but it was badly managed and under-staffed. The Archbishop of Dublin asked Mary Aikenhead to send some of her sisters to Grangegorman to help. The death rate was high, but the sisters remained at their posts bringing solace to the dying and gentle nursing to the convalescents. Only one sister contracted the disease, but none died.

• St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

  In 1834 St. Vincent’s Hospital opened in a house on St. Stephen’s Green. It was the first hospital staffed by nuns in the English-speaking world.

• Temple Street Children’s Hospital

  The Children's Hospital was founded in 1872 by a group of charitable people in a house at 9 Upper Buckingham Street, Dublin. In 1876, the Governing Committee invited the Religious Sisters of Charity to take over the complete running of the hospital.

• First Hospice

  Our Lady’s Hospice, Harold’s Cross was opened in 1879. Newspaper reports at the time hailed the opening of the Hospice as ‘a unique charity’ and as one ‘previously unknown in these islands, or indeed in the neighbouring continent’.

• Foxford Woollen Mills

  In 1892 Providence Woollen Mills was established under the guidance of Sr. Mary Arsenius Morrogh Bernard as a way of improving the social and economic conditions of the people of Foxford, Co. Mayo.