Our Trip Down Memory Lane this month brings us to Drimnagh in Dublin and the establishment of Mourne Road Convent, a mixed infants school and girl’s school. The schools continue to flourish to this day.  This article was first published in Mercy Live newspaper in June 2004.  When the author of this article, Sr. Stella McCormack, left Mourne Road she travelled to Kenya in 1958 where she ministered in education until 1999 when she returned to Ireland and continued her ministries until she passed in December 2011.  Mother Peter McLoughlin died in November 1969 and Sr. de Paul Maher died in July 1985.

Being Part of a Foundation Community

Dublin Extends
It was January 1944. Dublin was extending outwards and the Corporation was building estates for people from the inner city. We were asked by the Archbishop to open a convent in Mourne Road and to do our usual Mercy works.

Sr. Stella McCormack

Making a Shine
I recall entering the front door of the convent, built opposite the school, and being welcomed by a host of friends, all excited like me. Twenty two Sisters were appointed, only six of whom are alive today.

“The priority then was to convert the dry wooden boards into shining floors. It took boxes of wax and tons of hip, knee and ankle grease. When the wax was spread, one put a pad of blanket material under each foot and went rubbing back and forth, trying to produce a shine.”

We were  told how to maintain this new building. “Ends were to be kept in view” in the bedrooms. This meant that the doors were to be kept sufficiently ajar to reveal the bed. We young people had the audacity to giggle, realising that there was no room left for creativity. Nevertheless, there was a change in custom – we ceased to call our rooms ‘cells’; now they were ‘rooms’.

Founding a School
Domestic chores and the Official Opening over, we didn’t sit down to enjoy the shine or to indulge any further in flippant criticism. We set about our different ministries, most of which were in the girls’ primary school. Drimnagh classes had been accommodated in surrounding schools, so mine was waiting for me. Each child of my senior Infant Class gripped a piece of paper with her name, address and the number of her new classroom. I brought thirty lovely little girls to classroom No.18, and spent the morning writing names into the Roll Book. I kept the papers and that was my first big faux pas!

In the afternoon I waited in Room 18 for my beauties to arrive. Not many of them did! Had they abandoned me? I soon found that the remainder had gone into any room on the corridor! So I spent the afternoon searching out my thirty, and by the time the bell for dismissal rang, I had merely taught them a little song.

War-Time Problems
The school had been built in war-time. The timber in the cupboards hadn’t been seasoned properly and soon began to warp. There was no central heating. We froze. The children fared even worse. Their coats having hung in unheated cloakrooms were still wet when they donned them going home. So we first became famous by being mentioned in the Dáil; happily this bore oil and heat!

Visitation of the Poor in their Homes
People in Ireland were poor in those days and in our Drimnagh, more so. We sold a consignment of army blankets for a pittance. We dressed many of the 200 we had for First Communion.

“We went on visitation and brought packets of tea, sugar, bread and cooking fat as gifts. We found that children were too hungry and ill-clad to come to school.”

 In one of the council houses, those who needed it were given a decent dinner.

 We were part of the parish and the clergy were fired with the zeal and excitement that kept us all happy. In the community room we made schemes of work and ripped our old habits and repaired them. Much of our peace and happiness we attributed to Mother Peter McLoughlin who was our first Sister-in-Charge. She had the qualities for a foundation. ‘Characters’ are also a necessary part of a foundation. We had a few of these too, not least of whom was Sr. de Paul, who could be counted upon to do the unusual. Because we had a small garden we could take a walk out into the open country; a privilege not enjoyed by any other house at that time.

Mourne Road was still a foundation for a few years. It was a-growing. We got to know the people; they got to know us.

“Hurrah for foundations; they make the old young and the young merry”!

Stella McCormack resides in Mercy Convent, Beaumont, Dublin, Ireland

Stella McCormack rsm
South Central Province