Next Wednesday, when the Applied Maths Leaving Cert papers are handed up by the sole student of Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham taking that exam, the curtain will come down on not just the class of 1999 but on 177 years of continuous education.
The Dublin boarding school (annual fees £3,800) is closing because falling numbers of religious personnel has meant rising costs, and because the order has identified new services responding to new social needs. The educational complex on 12 acres will be sold, and some of the 37-strong community will be housed locally. Founded by Mother Teresa Ball, the school opened in 1822, when basic literacy and some social graces were considered sufficient for girls. Within this context, its first prospectus was remarkable, offering European languages, as well as "history, geography, the use of the globes, heraldry, writing, arithmetic, every kind of useful and ornamental needlework, as well as painting on velvet, satin and wood, harp, piano, vocal music and drawing".
Over the years Loreto Abbey became noviciate and Mother House, whence women went forth as missionaries - at a time when going on the missions could mean leaving home forever. By the early years of this century, returning to school after the holidays could be hazardous too. Paddy Foley, one of five sisters from Cork, came to the Abbey in 1919 aged 11. "When the Civil War was on, we were coming up to the train in Cork in the pony and trap and there was an IRA ambush ahead. We had to hide in a field for half an hour. We missed the train, had to travel by boat, arriving in school at seven o'clock the next morning," she recalls. She also remembers a lantern show where the decolletage of the wise and foolish virgins had been carefully filled in by the nuns with lace inserts.
The Sisters were instructed to rule with kindness: "If you give the children a long lecture, your words will sound like the clapper of the bell and they will begin to count the panes of glass in the window," remarked Mother Teresa famously. However, according to successive generations of pupils, her words were not always heeded.
Cecily Huggard, now 77, came to the Abbey in 1935. "You could get into trouble for very little. No lady would run, for example. You couldn't talk on the corridors. I used to smoke up on the roof. We weren't allowed have boyfriends, but one day two young men visited me in the parlour and one of the nuns had to sit in as chaperone, to my great indignation!"
In the early days, pupils would not see their parents during term time, a rule which was universally accepted without comment. It is significant that many past pupils in the 1940s and 1950s who describe life in school as tough and disciplined, add in the next breath that life at home was broadly similar: "You did what you were told and rarely dared to question authority," says Mary Gordon, a 1940s pupil. "Looking back, what strikes me is how docile we all were, very close to Victorian young ladies," says Ann Owens, recalling the 1950s. While the vision of Loreto was to empower women through education and moral formation, many pupils then accepted that the limits of their abilities were to be wives and mothers.
By the mid-1960s to late 1970s the wind of change was rustling through Irish female consciousness, but seemed to take longer to blow through the convent corridors. Looking back, past pupils, now in early middle age, still seem caught with imbalance and perceived injustice.
"You rarely had a right of reply even if you felt you were being unfairly treated," says one who left in 1964. "The message given was that it was a woman's role to be a giver, to sacrifice herself. There wasn't enough emphasis on being a strong person, or even having fun," recalls a contemporary who left a year later.
Sister Barbara Murphy has been school principal since 1993: "The closing of the Abbey means a great tradition is ending and initially there has been great sadness," she says. "However, this has been worked through over the last five years and on May 9th this year we had a reunion to which past pupils came from all over the world. It was a celebration, and I'm still getting letters from past pupils about their time with us."
The last class of sixth years seem confident, thoughtful and caring. The 14 pupils have been living and working in the corridor where once the sound of pianos, violins, flutes and cellos resounded each evening, a testament to the school's distinguished musical tradition. Sitting in their common room with books, magazines, flowers, kettle and cups, they talk of the past and present. Their career ambitions include medicine, journalism, law, childcare, archaeology, teaching and social science, yet they have a real sense of being part of a piece of social history.
Gillian Mernagh is the Abbey's last head girl: "I think we feel we are part of a whole family," she says, "a whole network that will live on."
