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5 12, 2017

300 Years of Dominican Sisters in Dublin. Part 11.

2023-07-13T15:40:31+00:00December 5, 2017|Dominican News, Ireland, Stories|

300 years conclusion:

Previous instalments reviewed the settlement and growth of a group of Galway Dominican nuns in Dublin from 1717. The story described the trials, tribulations, and challenges they faced in Penal days, with decreasing numbers and increasing debts owed to them. 102 years after their arrival, in Dublin, (followed by a few years in Clontarf), the final destination of the Dublin Dominican nuns was Cabra,(Dublin). In May 1819, Fr Cruise, (a Dominican priest and their community chaplain in Clontarf) was instrumental in the purchase of a house and seven acres in Cabra. The nuns stayed in Clontarf until their lease there expired. During those months, however, two nuns accompanied an ailing Sister to Cabra, hoping that the country air would be beneficial to her. Sadly she died during the night. On December 12th, 1819, the community of five finally moved Cabra. It would never have occurred to them, that during the following 200 years Cabra Dominican Community would “grow” into a Congregation with branches, not only in a number of towns/cities in Ireland but also worldwide, with missionary foundations and various ministries (still existing) in South Africa, Australia, Louisiana and Latin America. Details of the growth, and in some instances, the death of old branches, are described in sections of our website. Most of the details of the instalments of this series are quoted from Sr Maire Kealy’s book “From Channel Row to Cabra” (2010). Deo Gratias

 

From Sr. Maris Stella McKeown, Archivist, Mission Area of Ireland

For more details, see this website link WHO WE ARE, with Drop down menu –HISTORY and BOOKS.

The drop down menu in WHAT WE DO provides insights into how and where the seed, planted in Dublin in 1717, has grown and sprouted other branches in the following three centuries.

9 11, 2017

300 years of Dominican Women in Dublin: Part 10

2023-07-13T15:51:36+00:00November 9, 2017|Dominican News, Ireland, Stories, Uncategorized|

Clontarf
By 1798 there were only three Sisters in Channel Row. After the landlord did not renew the lease, the account books note: “received for old furniture sold on leaving Brunswick St £14.10.9d.” Thus, in the spring 1808, the Sisters, with some parlour boarders, moved to a rented house (later known as “Convent House”) in Vernon Avenue, Clontarf. With a good-sized garden, and fields purchased, they made some money: “received for vegetables”, “for grazing”, “for sheep sold in Smithfield”.

The Sisters opened a day school and a small boarding school in August 1808. Textbooks included Goldsmith’s English (abridged), French Grammar, Thompson’s Geography, Usher’s Grammar, Fontaine’s Fables. A Dancing Master was engaged. Each young lady was required to have a summer, winter, and dancing costume. The Bellew organ had been brought from Channel Row. The nuns made great efforts to restore the religious life and observances they had previously known. They used their religious names with the prefix Sister; they also wore the Dominican habit of white serge, a fact reflected in the laundry expenses. However, over time, their financial situation did not improve, with “debts” owed to them and taxes which had increased after the 1798 rebellion. One very encouraging sign, which proved to be to their salvation, was the arrival of four new members to the community and later, a Dominican priest and chaplain, Fr Edmund Cruice. However, after eleven years, due to decreasing numbers of pupils and lack of money to pay extern teachers, the school closed.

 

From Sr. Maris Stella McKeown, Archivist, Mission Area of Ireland

 

14 09, 2017

300 years of Dominican Women in Dublin: Part 8

2023-07-13T15:56:42+00:00September 14, 2017|Dominican News, News, Stories|

Channel Row expenses: basic provisions were vegetables, meat, butter, eggs. Although tea and coffee were sometimes bought, the regular drink was beer! Snuff also was customary. As well as rent and legal fees, payments were made to the smith, the ‘hucster’ woman, the basket woman, doctor, apothecary, coalman. At times, contracts were drawn up. e.g the gardener in 1728, “is to keep ye garden clean and in good order…and keep everything proper for ye kitchen in its season as ye ground will afford…if he fails…he’s to forfeit” [part of his wages]. He’s to carry all ye rubage out of ye garden and to ye garden bring in ye dung at his own cost.”

Taxation levied on Dubliners was often of a penal nature. Catholics had to pay tax for the upkeep of Protestant ministers, their clerk and church in each parish. The ministers’ money was paid to St Paul’s and St Michan’s as their buildings straddled both parishes. Besides these “Protestant” taxes, other taxes, (“cess”) included cess for workhouse and foundling, tax on the local river (“Bradoge cess”). The community paid “harth mony”, “lamp mony”, “Grand Jury cess for transporting felons”. It must have been galling for Catholics to pay the latter, who may have included relatives or friends. In later years new taxes were added for paving, pipe water, a police tax, a window tax. [to be continued in part 9]

From Sr. Maris Stella McKeown, Archivist, Mission Area of Ireland

For more details, see this website link WHO WE ARE, with Drop down menu –HISTORY and BOOKS.
The drop down menu in WHAT WE DO provides insights into how and where the seed, planted in Dublin in 1717, has grown and sprouted other branches in the following three centuries.

18 07, 2017

300 years of Dominican Women in Dublin: Part 6

2023-07-13T15:56:07+00:00July 18, 2017|News, Stories|

The chapel in Channel Row merits attention for several reasons. At times, events that occurred there were known to the “authorities”. A 1727 document refers to a famous convent in Channel Row, “where the most celebrated Italian musicians help to make the voices of the Holy Sisters more melodious; and many Protestant Fine Gentlemen have been invited to take their places in a convenient gallery, and hear the performances.”

On other occasions, “clandestine” activities took place, which, if discovered by the priest-catchers, earned them rewards. The nuns remained undaunted. By 1744, three bishops, on different occasions, were consecrated in the chapel, unknown to the “authorities”. Less fortunate were two Dominican priests found in the convent earlier in 1744. They were arrested and imprisoned. “Paid in charity for ye prisoners” appears quite often in the convent account books. In 1745, all Catholic churches were allowed to re-open. (As mentioned previously, enactment of the Penal Laws varied depending on the political situation.)
[to be continued in part 7]

From Sr. Maris Stella McKeown, Archivist, Mission Area of Ireland

For more details, see this website link WHO WE ARE, with Drop down menu –HISTORY and BOOKS.
The drop down menu in WHAT WE DO provides insights into how and where the seed, planted in Dublin in 1717, has grown and sprouted other branches in the following three centuries.

 

15 05, 2017

300 years of Dominican Women in Dublin – Part 4

2023-07-13T15:58:17+00:00May 15, 2017|News, Stories, Uncategorized|

Mrs Bellew’s “family”, in Channel Row, consisted of three groups of women- the nuns, girl boarders and parlour boarders. The latter were widows or single women who needed accommodation and who could afford to pay rent or, as they called it, a ‘pension. Some of the lady boarders or ‘parlour boarders’ had personal maids and so had a ‘suite’ of rooms, probably two or even three. [A further instalment of this series will elaborate.] Since penal laws still existed when the nuns came to Dublin, “they did not draw attention to themselves by wearing a religious habit. They conducted their boarding school, looked after the parlour boarders and lived their religious life in common. Their daily routine included the recitation of the Divine Office, meditation, and other prayers.” “the boarders who came to be educated were nieces of the nuns themselves or from other Anglo Norman families.” The Channel Row nuns earned the main part of their living through the boarding school fees and the parlour boarders’ pensions. They were also the recipients of donations in kind: church plate and gifts of money, usually small amounts. Before the banking system as we know it today, a system of “bonds” for the nuns’ dowries, (usually not used during their lifetime) provided income from the associated interest. At times, however, they had to borrow money from friends and family, especially when expected income was overdue. [Details from Kealy’s book] The young ladies’ education will be described in part 5

From Sr. Maris Stella McKeown, Archivist, Mission Area of Ireland

For more details, see this website link WHO WE ARE, with Drop down menu –HISTORY and BOOKS.
The drop down menu in WHAT WE DO provides insights into how and where the seed, planted in Dublin in 1717, has grown and sprouted other branches in the following three centuries.

 

 

22 07, 2015

Sr. Margaret Kelly OP

2023-07-13T16:06:19+00:00July 22, 2015|Ireland, Justice, My Vocation Story, News, South Africa, Stories|

My Vocation Story

This is the Vocation story of Sr Margaret Kelly O.P, a Cabra Dominican Sister, who lives and works in South Africa.  Sr Margaret is passionate about justice and peace issues.  She has served as Mission Area Prioress of South Africa in years gone by and she has also served as a Councillor in the Generalate.  She is currently the Prioress of St Dominics Priory in Port Elizabeth.

I was lucky enough to attend a Dominican school in Dun Laoghaire for most of my school life.  I remember in the Primary school several Nuns from different Orders came to tell their stories and to invite us to join them.  I remember thinking that if ever I decided to become a Nun I’d become a Dominican.  I found the Sisters gentle, encouraging and friendly…they seemed to assume that if they taught us well we would respond by learning well.  And they were right because they taught us above all to love and search for “Truth” – their Dominican Motto.

In High school we were treated more and more as responsible adults as we went up the ranks.  We had Dominican Priests to preach our Retreats and we could pop into the Convent chapel daily where we heard the Sisters praying the Divine Office.  As I moved up the school I needed to decide what I wanted to do and what subjects I needed to take.  With only two years left, I realised that I wanted to become a Dominican.  After some time I found a close friend of mine was also thinking of joining the Sisters.  Later we discovered that another friend had also decided to join the Order.  So after writing Matric and enjoying summer holidays, Dorothy Balfe, Cora McCullagh and I joined the Dominicans – and we are all still here today.  The initial inspiration came from God, but through sisters who were warm, friendly, intellectually challenging and committed to prayer, love of God and others and to education, as a way of preaching the Word of God.

At school I had also been very impressed when I heard stories of the Dominican Sisters and their ministries in South Africa and so after Novitiate responded to my second calling to Mission and I set sail for Cape Town.  I enjoyed my years at university both in Port Elizabeth and Pretoria even though because of Apartheid only White students were allowed there.  They too soon became friends even though they had been brought up prejudiced against Catholics as well as Blacks.  The search for Truth at many levels and in various ways brought us all together.  I then began my teaching career and after some years became School Principal in Holy Rosary in Port Elizabeth.  I had also joined the local Justice and Peace Commission and both ministries came together in 1977 when we answered the call to open the school to children of all races which was against the Apartheid Laws.  There were many threats and harassments from security police but the call to Justice was much stronger and we were bravely supported by many teachers, pupils and parents.  When I was called to serve on our Region Council I worked to extend the appreciation of different Races, Languages and Cultures in all our Schools.

In January 1987 I was invited to serve as Secretary to the Justice and Peace Commission of the South African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) headed by Archbishop Denis Hurley.  Apartheid was at its worst and many of our workers were in prison so it was another challenging Call.  In my years there I saw the bombed out headquarters of those who resisted apartheid: the Trade Unions, the Council of Churches and our own SACBC.  But in spite of the brutality of the Apartheid System, it was a privilege to work with many stalwarts of the Liberation Struggle.  Alas, just as Mandela took over as President and the ANC as Government in 1994 I was called to take over the Leadership of our Sisters in South Africa.  Several different calls to Service and Leadership followed over the next two decades and to each I just said: “Yes Lord”.

Each day I just thank the Lord for His many different calls to me over the course of my life.  The calls of the Lord meant I had a rich, fulfilling and very happy life – far greater that I could ever have asked for or imagined if my life had been determined by my own silly whims.

 

Sr Margaret Kelly O.P

7 07, 2015

Sr. Joan O’Donovan OP

2023-07-13T18:23:04+00:00July 7, 2015|Dominican News, Ireland, My Vocation Story, News, Stories, Uncategorized|

 

My Vocation Story

A family story, that I was never too happy to hear repeated, was about my being brought as a small girl to visit a convent. One of the Sisters asked me what I would like to be when I grew up and my reply was “I would like to be a Reverend Mother”! Let me hasten to add that I do not proffer the story as an early indication of a religious vocation, but rather because it suggests, correctly, that convents and sisters were a familiar and positive part of the ambience I grew up in, as were churches and priests, Mass, Benediction, Sodalities, other Church devotions.

In other words, I was lucky enough to grow up at a time in Ireland when for many people God was acknowledged as the ultimate context of life, even though they probably wouldn’t have expressed it in so many words.

I went to school first to the Ursulines in Cork and later, as a boarder, to the Loreto Sisters in Dublin. I remember my school days as happy and in hind-sight I realise that, as well as being well-taught, I learned a great deal about my faith through the example as well as the teaching of the Sisters. Their lives had a certain mystery about them too, which like many other girls, I found intriguing. In fact in many ways they became my role models. Which was, I suppose, why in my final years in school I found myself seriously considering whether I was being called to become a sister myself.

However, when I told my father about it, he was quite adamant that I should go to College first. And so I went to UCC where doing an Arts Degree, making new friends, and being part of various College societies and wider student social life absorbed all my time and energy for the next four years. All thought of religious life faded into the background. After that I had the good fortune to be invited to teach in a newly opened and innovative lay Catholic school and so to begin my professional career in a dynamic setting which I found challenging, absorbing and fulfilling.

Around the same time, my brother, who had entered the Dominican Order some years previously, was ordained. Attending his Ordination and his First Mass were very happy and significant family events. In the succeeding months I found myself, possibly because questioned by my brother’s life and values, beginning to revisit my own attraction to religious life. But not only was I very happy in my job but I had just begun a 2-year Master’s degree course in French. This gave me a further reason for deferring the decision I now knew had to be made. When I did finally face it, it took me a further two years of indecision before I finally applied to be admitted to the Congregation of the Irish Dominican Sisters and was accepted. This Dominican Congregation, in contrast to the two congregations with which I was familiar, was almost completely unknown to me.

That was in July. There were still three months of inner churning, where I lurched from making necessary preparations to enjoying, what I saw as for the last time, a hill-climbing  holiday with friends, and visits to places I thought I would never see again. I have a vivid memory of free-wheeling one day down a long hill enjoying, though with a certain sadness, the wind in my face and the sense of utter freedom. Yet the inner call remained insistent.

It was altogether unexpected then on the day we entered the Novitiate and all the goodbyes were over and my family had departed for Cork that my immediate sense in this unknown place among so many strangers was of total peace of mind. It was not so much an experience of being confirmed in the choice I had made with so much difficulty,  as a sense of having landed in the way of life that God had chosen for me without my realising it.

Although like everybody else I have had my share of major and minor crises and of dark times of suffering, I have never even for a single moment doubted that I was in the place where I belonged. Sixty years later I am still amazed at having the good fortune to belong to the Dominican Order.

There followed three years of initiation into the particular way of following Christ shaped by St. Dominic our founder, which is summed up in one of the mottos of the Order as: “To praise, to bless, to preach.” So from the first day we new arrivals learned the meaning of “To praise” by being absorbed actively into the community liturgy, singing with them the praises of God in the Eucharist and the Divine Office, and in class being instructed in the Scriptures, in particular the psalms, as well as in the chanting and singing of the Gregorian Chant. (In those days the Office was recited or sung in Latin). I found this all most enriching. I grew to love it and continue to be sustained by it as a sharing in the prayer of Christ with the whole Church.

In the same way we learned by the way daily life was organised that “To bless” meant in practice putting others, and first of all the community before oneself, being “time-tabled” rather than organising one’s own time, for example, and more demanding still, learning to love one’s neighbour as oneself. A life-long work, for sure, but for us young people living with others of our own age and in our first fervour, it did not seem too difficult.

The teaching of the formation community both by their example and by their class work was my first initiation into what it is for Dominicans “To preach.” Then after those first three years I was back to the field of education myself and had my first experience of the particular quality of Dominican education as a member of a very creative staff of sisters and lay teachers. I was constantly surprised by their readiness to try out new ideas such as taking part in pilot schemes for curriculum development, and by their ability to draw out the potential of their students by their respect and trust in them.

After some years I became involved in other expressions of the Dominican preaching charism, first as member of a formation team privileged to help young women discern and test their own call to religious life, and later as member of the Council of the Congregation where I had the opportunity of visiting our sisters working in other parts of the world, and of being introduced by them to different contexts and experiences of Church in South Africa, Argentina, Lisbon and Louisiana as well as in Ireland.

My last preaching ministry was a return to teaching, this time to adults, in an Institute founded by a Dominican Friar whose vision it was to put together the insights of modern psychology and the insights of the great religious traditions. I was part of a team made up of Dominican brothers and sisters, lay men and women. As teachers, guides and therapists we worked with the many people who found being introduced to this particular map of the person through a reflective methodology helpful in making sense of their lives in the rapidly changing Ireland of today. It was for me a profound experience of Dominican preaching.

The words of T.S.Eliot: “In my end is my beginning” come to mind when I reflect on my experience of living out the call “To praise, to bless, to preach” in old age. In some ways with the falling away of outer ministries, the mission area is more and more the local community with all the joys, challenges and difficulties that this entails as we struggle to become together a community of holy preaching. Yet we never cease being called to bear witness to God’s compassion for the world and opportunities to do so in our daily comings and goings keep taking me by surprise.

I am grateful to be part of a community where the example of others in their fidelity to the praising of God in the liturgy, and to the blessing of each other in community, encourage me to keep going, and, more importantly, to keep remembering the truth I glimpsed on the day I entered: I am of God’s making, not my own. St. Paul puts it so much better than I can: “We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he meant us to live it.” (Eph. 2:10)

 

Sr Joan O’Donovan OP

29 06, 2015

Sr. Aedris Coates OP

2023-07-13T18:32:22+00:00June 29, 2015|My Vocation Story, News, Portugal, Stories|

My Vocation Story

“Each one is different but each one has received an invitation from Jesus.”

When I was 12 years of age, I was travelling with my mother and my two sisters and two brothers in a train from Durban to Pietermaritzburg (Natal, South Africa). A thought or voice came to me “When I pass here again I will be a nun.” I was quiet for a time and then I forgot about it.

In Maritzburg, I attended a Convent school of the Sisters of the Holy Family, first as a day pupil and then as a boarder. The teachers were excellent and so was our religious formation. We attended daily Mass in the Parish Church, which was opposite the school, and could pray in the Sisters’ Chapel in the afternoons. A Praesidium of the Legion of Mary was begun by Ruby Roberts, who had travelled from Kenya, where she was working with Edel Quinn. The meetings each week and the work we were given deepened my prayer life, but I had no thoughts of “being a nun.”

My family returned to Ireland in mid-year 1944 and it was decided that I would go to the Dominican School in Wicklow. It was like entering another world and I was the ‘alien.’  I spoke with a South African accent, my hair was bleached from the sun and the girls in my class knew very little about the war raging in Europe and parts of Africa and Asia from where I had come.  The Sisters were more understanding and they were my teachers. One Sister in particular, who was in charge of the boarders, was deeply understanding of how I was feeling and the difficulties I had in adjusting to school life.  She was Sister Marcoline Lawler and she became my lifelong friend.

My three years in Wicklow was my real ‘novitiate’ where I came to know and love Jesus Christ. The religious formation was an integral part of our education and quite intensive: daily Mass, rosary and Benediction, retreats, study of the gospels and the Church and spiritual reading. By the time it came for me to leave school, my secret wish was to give my life to God. Would it be possible for me to enter religious life with the Dominicans? My family was returning to Singapore, I had no family in Ireland and I still felt a stranger in an unknown land. The Dominicans were willing to receive me, and my parents reluctantly allowed me to go my way (I had just turned eighteen years of age). It was the first and only time I saw my Father cry when he said goodbye to me. The years in the novitiate were not happy ones. Life was austere, restrictive and sometimes bewildering. I was very lonely for my family who were so far away. There were many things I would have liked to share with them.

All was not darkness! Sister Mary John of Gorcom was one of our ‘teachers’ and introduced us to the Divine Office, the Prayer of the Church, and my love for the Psalms began then. She also led us through Scripture, Church History, the great artists and their paintings, the constellations and, later on, Latin. From time to time, she would give us news of the outside world: we had no access to newspapers or radio. There were nine of us and she contrived to make our lives as normal as possible.

I made First Profession and, after one more year in the novitiate house, we were assigned out to a community. It was like being released from prison and joy of joys, I was sent to my beloved Wicklow! Once again, I had access to books, newspapers and radio, and to very enjoyable conversations at ‘recreation’ time. We lived a very full and ‘rich’ religious life. As well as the daily hours of community prayer, there were times for private prayer and spiritual reading. We had wonderful ten-day retreats from very good Dominican preachers and, during the year, we had local confessors who gave excellent spiritual direction.

After studying for a degree and diploma in education, I returned once more to the community in Wicklow and to the work of teaching. This was the late 1950’s. I began to feel a sense of uneasiness about the religious life and I expressed it to a Sister as stagnation. Something had to change and it did! A newly-elected Prioress General asked for volunteers to go to Alabama in the USA. I, and several other Sisters, volunteered. In fact, none of us were sent to Alabama, but to other communities in Ireland and South Africa and I was sent to Portugal. This was in 1962, when the Vatican Council II began in Rome and the Spirit of change was everywhere.

I have been in Portugal for 45 years and it is now my religious home and country. Our community life is prayerful, joyful and lively. We take an active part in the life of the people, the Church, and the Dominican Family, and have opportunities for being truly a Community of Holy Preaching.

By the way, I did pass through the Valley of a Thousand Hills again! I was attending a Leadership Conference in South Africa and travelled from Durban to Maritzburg, but this time, by coach along a wide motorway with the hills in the distance.

 

Sr Aedris Coates OP

15 06, 2015

Sr. Francis Cosgrove

2023-07-14T11:55:39+00:00June 15, 2015|My Vocation Story, News, South Africa, Stories|

My Vocation Story

This is the Vocation Story of Sr Francis Cosgrove, a Cabra Dominican Missionary Sister, living and working in South Africa.  Sr Francis specialises in Spiritual Direction and gives guided Retreats to individuals.

Sr. Francis Cosgrove OP

Sr. Francis Cosgrove OP

I give thanks to God for the precious gift of a Vocation to the Religious Life and I marvel at the wonderful ways in which I have been guided along the way.  I also give thanks for the many people who have encouraged me and supported me in it, for over 60 years; chief among them would be my family, extended family, friends, Dominican teachers and Community members.

I come from a very staunch Catholic family where the practice of our faith was second-nature.  Most of my school life was spent in Sion Hill, a local Dominican School.  I imbued the spirit of St Dominic from the Sisters who taught me, and was especially influenced by the example of their joyfulness, prayerfulness and kindness.  No wonder, then, that as I progressed up the school and began to think about the future, I gradually became aware of a gentle urge to “be a nun”.  All of this, of course, I kept to myself.

I spent the last three years of my school life in the boarding school, where we had more contact with the Sisters and could join them for Compline in the Chapel at night.  During these years, too, we had many visits from Sisters of other Congregations looking for young people to join them.  We also worked very hard for the annual Sale of work for the Missions, as well as for the Holy Childhood Association.  God was at work, and the urge to find out more grew!  This I did by praying to the Holy Spirit, going to Bookshops, picking up leaflets etc.  The turning point for me was when a dear Sister, who had known me from the Junior School, asked me one night, “Anne, have you ever thought of becoming a nun?”  My reply was, “No one has ever asked me!”  I was 16 years old at the time.  That for me was a sign from God that I was on the right path.  And so the search continued for another year and a half.

Finally, in my last year at school, we had a visit from some Sisters working in South Africa.  The whole School was assembled to hear them speak about their life and work there.  I cannot remember what was said, but I do know that at a certain moment during their address to us, I knew that I was being called to be a Dominican in South Africa.

Six months later, I was being interviewed by Mother Reginald and other Sisters in Cabra, Dublin.  In October 1952, I entered the Novitiate in Kerdiffstown and three years later, I arrived in Cape Town.  Many changes have taken place since then, both in myself and in the country, but I know that the decision to answer the call of God was the best one I have ever made!  It has brought me happiness and fulfilment.

As regards Ministry, I was a full-time teacher and cared for Boarders up until the early seventies when I was gradually led into a new Ministry of Spiritual Direction and Individually-Directed-Retreats.  At first, this could only be part time, as I had other commitments.  However, since 1992, it has been my main involvement in Pastoral Care.  For the past fifteen years, I have run our Retreat Centre here in Springfield.  It has been most enriching and life-giving experiences for me.

I pray that God will guide you as you search for His will for YOU.

Have YOU ever thought of becoming a Sister?

Sr Francis Cosgrove O.P

 

 

5 06, 2015

Srs Maureen MacMahon and Edel Murphy on Froebel education in Ireland

2023-07-14T13:09:53+00:00June 5, 2015|Dominican News, Good News, Ireland, News, Stories, Uncategorized|

Sr Maureen MacMahon OP looks back on beginnings of Froebel education in Ireland

On Monday morning in September 1943 four of us; Frances Lodge, Ann Fitzgerald, Sr. Dorothea O.P. and myself, (Sr. Grignion, now Sr. Maureen O.P.) sat down in a small uncomfortable room in Sion Hill to attend our first lecture.  We were pioneers of the Froebel method of primary education in the Republic of Ireland.  The lecturers were as perplexed as we were, but as the course unfolded, revealing the open, liberal method of Frederick Froebel, both rose to the task and the first few years passed quickly and successfully.Sr Maureen MacMahon

I was full of enthusiasm for the new method of learning through activity – “no more sitting on a hard old bench” – of encouraging pupils to explore the world around them, especially their immediate environment, to see and respect the beauty of nature and to express themselves through art.  The child was now at the centre.  We learnt how to discover the gifts and strengths of each, how to respond to these and so help the child to develop in a holistic way.  I loved especially the emphasis on self-expression through creative crafts and art.

 

Further years were to bring changes.  I found myself teaching Art at senior and then at student and adult levels, but whatever the age group or subject, the principles advocated by Froebel, were as relevant at 5, 15 or 50 years.

Sr Maureen MacMahon OP

See more at National University of Ireland Maynooth 

 

 

Sr. Edel Murphy the last Dominican Sister to be a full time student of Froebel
Proud to call myself a Froebel Teacher!

sr edelWhen I think of my years at the Froebel College of Education the words freedom and trust come to mind. My Froebel days go from 1990-1993 and being immersed in the philosophy of education that highlighted free play, discovery learning, drawing from the child, engaging with children in their learning, the recognition that children have unique gifts and capabilities and the image of a garden where all these children are to be taken care of and nourished- gave the sense of freedom, trust and a wonderment of what lay before us as educators. The philosophy of Fredrich Froebel (1782-852) was tangible throughout my three years in the college. Froebel created the concept of ‘Kindergarten’. In this Kindergarten children are to be taken care of and nourished like plants in a garden. He taught the connection of human life and life in nature and central to it all was the importance of free play. It was a busy time of putting together treasure boxes, adapting stories to suit the needs of the children in front of us, collecting all sorts of materials to recycle into maths, English, Irish equipment for groups of children, arranging play areas and planning activities where nature was to be a prominent part of the child’s life.

On a personal note I was always grateful to Sr Maura Duggan for giving me the space to engage with the course and with the students and for encouraging us on any ideas or thoughts about aspects of college life we may have had. It was truly a fun time, though the teaching practices were difficult, but the closeness and support of students to and for one another filled the atmosphere of the college. Sr Conleth Wilson also comes to my mind first when I reflect on Froebel and his method of education. Her art classes were always calm, safe and seemed the right place to be at the time. She gently led us through the theme of the class, instructed on what was required and then stepped back and watched with love what was produced by each student. One day in particular, feeling that I should by now be producing a work of art, I put down my utensils and gave up ready to dispose of what I had done. Needless to say Sr Conleth stepped quietly forward and simply suggested that I stop for a minute. She then invited me to take another look at the piece and told me to point out what part of the picture stands out for me when I look at it. This I calmly did. I was then instructed to rule lines around that one little piece, cut it out, mount it twice and finally put it up on the display board. Time moved on and I completed the task and stood back to look at the picture. Sr Conleth returned to my side and said simply, “well, what do you think now?” I actually thought it was good and said so. She agreed of course and finished by saying, “yes you did that, I guided you to show you what you can do. That is your task with the children you come into contact with will be. You are to guide them gently so as to nourish and draw out from their talent”. I thought later that for Conleth asking me to display the work implied that our talents when drawn from within are to be gifts of beauty for others where God becomes a visible sign for that moment anyhow.
Each time I go into a class my years in Froebel stand to me and the importance of respect to be shown for the work children produce must be prominent. I was always somewhat chuffed when after displaying children’s work on a notice board I almost always had the comment from an older member of staff or a principal, “you would know that you were a Froebel teacher”. For this gift I do thank those sisters who enabled it to be so and I am deeply proud that I became a Froebel teacher!

Sr Edel Murphy OP

 

 

 

 

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