NANO NAGLE, the Irish woman who founded the Presentation Order of nuns in 1777 and whose death occurred 225 years ago yesterday, has been remembered at a special jubilee Mass in Cork.
Born in Co Cork in 1718, Ms Nagle came from a landed family who sent her and her sister Anne to France for an education, which was forbidden in Ireland under the Penal Laws. Returning home, she clandestinely set up a number of hedge schools to educate the needy.
In 1775 she entered a novitiate and became a nun, Sr Mary of St John of God. She went on to found a convent and the order of the Presentation Sisters. She died in 1784.
Nano Nagle is widely credited with establishing girls education in Ireland through her work with the Presentation Sisters.
Yesterday at St Finbarr’s South Church in Cork hundreds gathered at 3pm Mass to remember Nano Nagle who just four years ago was voted Ireland’s greatest ever woman in a phone-in poll conducted by Marian Finucane’s RTÉ radio show.
The chief celebrant, the Bishop of Cork and Ross Dr John Buckley, said he was honoured to be able to be with the Presentation sisters on this “very special celebration.”
He paid tributes to members of the Presentation Order who had continued with Nano Nagle’s “great work in education” right up to the present day.
Sr Mary Hoare, provincial of the southwest province of the order, said Nano Nagle always had a sense of having started something bigger than herself as she trusted wholeheartedly in God.
Students from Presentation Secondary School in Ballyphehane, Cork, were the choir for the day and students from North Presentation and Turners Cross in the city were also involved in the ceremony.
After the Mass there was a procession back to Nano’s graveside in the nearby South Presentation Convent and refreshments were provided.