St. Mary’s Convent, Nenagh
Last year we celebrated the Centenary of the completion of the Convent of St. Mary’s, Nenagh and before the memory of that celebration fades from our minds it seems fitting to pay tribute to the years of inspired and selfless work carried on by the Sisters of Mercy in a most unique setting. The Sisters carried out their ministry in the forbidding grey stone complex of Tipperary North Riding County Gaol. I was privileged to benefit from the education provided by these intrepid Sisters and to have experienced the uniqueness of the surroundings in which it was given.
A little over a hundred years ago on the 7th May, 1913 Dr. Michael Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, blessed the Convent at St. Mary’s, Nenagh, which was newly built in the precincts of the former Gaol. From 1888 the Sisters of Mercy had been living and working in the Governor’s House of the Gaol. In 1905 a lease on the gaol premises was granted to the Trustees of the Sisters of Mercy for 999 years specifically for the education of the people of North Tipperary. Demolition of some of the gaol blocks soon began and these were replaced by a Primary School completed in 1911 and by the Convent in 1913. The Secondary School made use of the remaining gaol buildings.
In the 1950’s Secondary Education was not available to day pupils in every Irish town. My native Roscrea was one of these towns. Parents sent their children to boarding schools established by Religious men and women in other towns. I was sent to the Sisters of Mercy in Nenagh, to the school which was located in the disused County Gaol. Here I spent four happy years despite the grim surroundings of prison blocks and received a truly rounded education.
Governers House or Round House
However it is not of this education that I write but of the unique place in which it was given. When the Sisters moved to their new convent, the Governor’s House, or Round House as it was familiarly known, became available for classrooms. This was a three storey octagonal building over a basement. During its short period as a prison this house served as the prison Governor’s residence and the Chapel for the gaol complex. When I attended school there in the 1950’s there were three large classrooms, the “top of the house”, the oratory and the clock room. In addition there were six smaller triangular rooms – two on each floor. A sturdy staircase which led to the top storey was covered with a rubber backed material. Pupils were assigned three steps each of this stairs which they kept swept and polished. Other pupils had charge of the fires in the classrooms which they lit each morning and tended during the day. These open fires were the only source of heating. We considered them adequate and teachers whose desks were near the fire never complained. The Principal’s office was near the side door. This was a quaint little room, triangular like the others but just big enough to hold a desk and two chairs and a press for books and records. There were cloakrooms, book rooms and a fuel store in the basement which still had the original ovens of the Governor’s kitchen. There was an entrance to the basement under the steps of the heavily panelled front door. A bell rope hung in the front hall and was tolled for prayers in the oratory each morning at 9.30 by a trusted pupil. The bell also served as a reminder to townsfolk that morning activities should begin.
Boarders to St. Mary’s Secondary School had accommodation in the Female Infirmary of the gaol. This building was positioned a little distance from the gaol blocks and was renamed St. Catherine’s by the Sisters. It was well suited to the change of use and little structural alteration was necessary. There was a kitchen and dining room on the ground floor as well as a school room, recreation room and cloakroom. Upstairs there was the big dormitory and three smaller ones. There was a stairs near the kitchen but pupils usually used an external stairway erected by the Sisters to serve as both access and fire escape.
I have many clear happy memories of St. Catherine’s and the life we lived there. The kitchen remained unchanged from its Infirmary days with black and red tiled floor and a big black range on which all our meals were cooked. I remember the enamel dish of eggs left ready to be boiled for breakfast and the hot water bottles filled with a big enamel jug from the Burco boiler. Brown homemade bread was delivered every morning in wicker baskets covered with tea towels. The food was plain but there was plenty of it. I can still hear the call to the girl who went for extra bread at tea time, “Sixteen and the heel, old pal”. We sent our clothes to be laundered in the Gaol Laundry which continued its original use but for an altered clientele.
There was a piano in the schoolroom and Ms. Elsie Kelly taught music there. The Christmas atmosphere began after November Day when faltering versions of Away in a Manger and Silent Night were heard from practising would be musicians. For the rest of the year the Royal Irish Academy exam set pieces could be heard over the din of teenage chatter. A coal fire always burned in this room in cold weather and many a story was exchanged around its cheerful glow on winter evenings when it was too wet to go for walks. There was another piano in the adjoining room on which all the pop songs of the day were played while energetic youngsters danced to their hearts’ content.
The gaol complex was ideally situated to access the town’s amenities. We Boarders attended eight o’clock Mass in the Parish Church each morning, forming a demure group in navy gabardine coats and navy berets. To mark the Sabbath, navy school girl hats were worn to Mass and to Evening Devotions on Sunday evenings. The convent side Chapel was more convenient for recitation of the Rosary after evening study. When lessons finished on school evenings we went two by two in a long crocodile through the Gate Lodge in eager anticipation of a walk out Whitewalls and the opportunity to spend our meagre pocket money in a little shop near the Hurling Field. On Sundays we did a longer walk usually a “round” where we went out one road and back another. We gave little attention to the grim history of the Gate Lodge with its gallows and condemned prisoners cells through which we passed several times every day. We regarded it as in the distant past and being young we seldom dwelled for long on what was not immediate.
St. Catherine’s, as we were known, was absorbed into Nenagh town life. Enlightened school authorities allowed us to attend many of the town’s functions. Performances by the Nenagh Players in the nearby Scouts’ Hall and Town Hall were typical functions eagerly attended. We were encouraged to attend cultural events in the town. As a bemused First Year I have a distinct memory of attending a recital by the Irish Symphony Orchestra in the Rialto Cinema. Seeing real people in tuxedos and evening dress was not likely to be forgotten. Events like this introduced us to an appreciation of music other than that broadcast on Radio Luxemburg and coloured our girlish entry into a cultural world presented to us in the classrooms of the Governor’s House.
Nenagh Convent Chapel
When I look back now from the vantage point of years, I can acknowledge the foresight of the Sisters of Mercy in putting Tipperary North Riding County Gaol to such advantageous use. Few boarding schools of the time inhabited buildings with such a history and overcame the grimness of the setting with so singular a success. As pupils we paid little attention to our unusual surroundings but with the acceptance of youth we danced and sang, played tennis and found an education in a place where once were heard the sighs of inmates and the clang of metal on limestone as prisoners laboured at breaking stones in the little field we called the Hillies Hollies.
It is over sixty years since I was at school in Nenagh but looking back on times past I think the years spent there were among the happiest of my life. The teaching of enlightened educators strengthened an appreciation of what was best in life. It was a school which nurtured our Faith and our Irish heritage. It taught us to be courteous and respectful and to act as good citizens should. Despite the frugal simplicity of the 1950’s and the forbidding setting, I now look back nostalgically on life within that gaol complex and believe it was as good as there was for a teenager of the 1950’s.
Kathleen Minogue rsm
South Central Province
