Collectors are strange creatures. Some collect stamps or coins. Others
farm implements, oil lamps or even golf balls with logos on them. The
super rich collect Rembrandts or Picassos. Yours truly concentrates on
old books and old hand-written documents. You are always hoping to get
the special one-to hit the jackpot so to speak- like for instance a Padraig
Pearse letter from Kilmainham Jail or perhaps a Winston Churchill manuscript
account of his meeting with Stalin, or even a Jack B. Yeats in the attic.
Alas, the reality is more sobering, and it is seldom one comes across
anything of interest by mere chance.
Not long ago I attended an auction in Kells, Co. Meath in the hope of
picking up something. I looked and looked through the shelves of books
without much luck. I thought I might go home as it was getting late.
Taking a break, I sat down near a box of useless-looking books. To while
away a few minutes I waded through the contents picked up a grubbily
covered book and out of force of habit leafed through it. Nothing! Nothing
but boredom and then I spotted it- an old letter between the last page
and the cover. With much excitement I took it out and perused it.
It was headed as follows:
Presentation Convent,
St.
John’s N. F. L.,
Jan. 12th 1923.
Not so old but still of a very much different era. It was penned by
a very old nun to her niece, Lizzie, probably in the West of Ireland.
The weather had been cold, she was ill, did not expect to live for long
more.
Finally the Auctioneer came to where I was and the box was knocked
down to me. When I got home I put most of the box’s contents
in the recycling bin and reread the letter a few times.
The Presentation Convent in St. John’s, Newfoundland is still
going strong, and on the Internet I found its address. Also that it
has a well-kept archive, looked after by one Sr. Perpetua Kennedy.
In answer
to my letter she sent me much information on the late Sr. Xavier long
since interred in the simple Convent cemetery.
She had spent her life far from home in the service of others. She had
never returned to her native land
.
The stark facts of her life and death were these:
Name: O’MALLEY, Miss Mary Jane
Place of Birth: Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland
Entrance: 21February 1866
Reception: 15th January 1867, age 25 (Born 1842 just before the famine)
Religious
Name: Sister M. Xavier O’Malley
Profession: Cathedral Square, 8th November 1869
Death:
Cathedral Square, St. John’s
Age: 81 years
Her parents were Austin and Mary O’Malley. She had been baptised
and confirmed.
In the same year as her reception she took her vows as follows:
“ I, sister Mary Jane O’Malley called in Religion Mary
Xavier Joseph, do vow and promise to God poverty, chastity and obedience,
and to persevere until the end of my life in this Institute for the charitable
Instruction of poor girls in this Enclosure, according to the Rules and
Constitution of this Order of the Presentation of Our Blessed Lady, approved
of and confirmed by the Apostolical Authority of Our Holy Father Pope
Pius vii under the authority, and in presence of you, Revd. Edward O’ Keefe
V. G. and of our Revd. Mother , Margaret O’ Shaughnessy, called
in Religion, Mary Magdalen Superioress of this Convent of the Presentation –in
the year of Our Lord Oct. 23rd 1867.
Signed: Mary Jane O’Malley
in religion Mary Xavier Joseph
Superioress
Margaret O’Shaughnessy
Assistant M. de Pazzi Mullock
Transatlantic Voyage in 1866
After some pleasantries she said she was in bed, as she felt very weak
and the cold was too severe to permit her getting up. A lady called Josephine
had asked for her family history and she proceeds to give what she knows
of it. I think it best to tell her story as she wrote it:
“
Firstly. My grandfather was Owen O’Malley of Burrishoole, Newport,
Co. Mayo. He had three brothers namely: first Joseph who was executed
as a rebel: second Austin who escaped to France on one of the French
ships sent by Napoleon Buonaparte to pick up all the Irishmen they
could get to enter his army as they had gained the name of being great
fighters,
and indeed they were fighters but the poor fellows gained but little
for their courage. Uncle Austin married in France and had two sons.
His eldest son Auguste entered the French army and rose to be Colonel.
Through
his bravery Uncle Austin’s sight became impaired and he returned
to Ireland when my mother was young, and he lived with my grandfather.
His wife was dead and his eldest son was an officer in the French
army. He had his second son with him, Alexander, but this poor
boy had met
with an accident at school and was quite deaf. The French government
kindly paid him a yearly pension even after his father’s death.
He died in Dublin some years ago. Alexander’s brother Auguste O’Malley
rose to be general in the French Army. At the siege of Algeria in the
north of Africa only two men were left alive of one particular regiment.
They were Uncle Austin’s son Auguste and a private soldier. Auguste
was made a captain and the soldier a lieutenant. During a visit which
I paid to the French Nuns near here on the island of St. Pierre I met
a lay sister who had been acquainted with General O’Malley
when she was a nurse in a military hospital.”
At
the end of the letter she asks Lizzie to pray for her when
she hears of her death. She sends her regards to Lizzie’s husband
and her little ones.
Burrishoole Abbey
Sr. Xavier was obviously very proud of the exploits of
the O’Malley
family in France. It is pretty evident ,as well, that she was conscious
of the gallant but futile efforts of some Mayo men when the French General
Humbert landed in Killala. Humbert led his French contingent and his
Irish volunteers on a hopeless expedition through Connaught, passing
through my own village of Dromahair on their way to easy defeat at Ballinamuck
in Co. Longford. The French surrendered with dignity: the Irish were
sadistically hunted down. That night the defeated French officers sat
down to dinner with their British “brother” officers. It
was a civil good-natured affair, with the British pleased with their
victory, the French a bit disappointed, but vowing they would meet again,
with, hopefully, a different outcome. Toasts to all were drank well into
the night.
Humbert’s Expedition 1798
It always amazes me how barbarity and civility could rest so easily
together.
What inspired Sr. Xavier and thousands like her to depart her native
shore, head out on an open sea on a dangerous voyage to a faraway
land? Cynics might
say it was lack of opportunity and hard times in Ireland. It was to get away
from the drear of the wet and cold west of Ireland, to get away from hunger
and want and misery. It was excitement.
It is not easy for our present generation to imagine any motive other than
self interest. But no! People were driven by a vocation or calling to serve
their God. Some were lay sisters: most took up nursing or teaching. Some
of them died on their journey. Some died of disease soon after getting to
their
destination. A brief letter would bear the sad news home. I have no doubt
that West Wicklow contributed its fair share of religious women who brought
their
energy and innate kindness and goodness all over the globe to the furthest
outposts of the British Empire. They brought ,too, with them their Irish
sense of fun, music and culture, which is still very much alive today. They
created
their own Empire- an Empire of fine ideals, of justice, of adventure, of
learning, of peace, of progress and good humour. Today we know this as The
Irish Diaspora.
Spare a thought now for those many long- forgotten Irish missionaries like
the noble Sr. Xavier.
Footnote:
The Presentation Sisters were begun in Cork in 1776 by Nano Nagle.
The first foreign convent was set up in Newfoundland in 1829, when two sisters
left Galway to cross the Atlantic.
Written By Jim Corley.
