Joanna (Mother Francis) Bridgeman (1813 – 1888) was a multi-faceted Woman of Mercy, an educator, administrator, leader of Kinsale Convent of Mercy, Crimean war nurse, writer, and founder of numerous convents. Her origins lay in County Clare, one of four children born to St. John Bridgeman and Lucy Reddan. After the death of her mother in 1818 and the remarriage of her father in 1819, Joanna, and her brothers, Richard and Henry, her sister having died in infancy, were brought up by her maternal aunt, Joanna Reddan, initially in Scariff and from 1819 in Limerick. Reddan was a wealthy woman and became involved in various charitable and philanthropic activities in the city, assisted by her niece as she grew into adulthood. In 1832, Bridgeman joined her aunt in nursing victims of a cholera outbreak in the city, an experience which was to serve her well in Kinsale and the Crimea. She also taught in the poor school run by two Poor Clare Sisters, the last of that Poor Clare community in Limerick.
On 24th September, 1838, Sisters of Mercy moved into the Poor Clare Convent and St Mary’s, the first Convent of Mercy in Limerick was established. On 1st November 1838, Joanna Bridgeman entered St. Mary’s Convent and received the habit on 4th December, having had her reception instructions from Catherine McAuley. “This she always looked on as a very special privilege, not only for the sake of the instructions received, but because it afforded her such ample opportunities of learning the Foundress’s views and opinions on religious life in general and on the duties and spirit of Order in particular”. (Memoir, Kinsale Archive). She was Professed on 9th December, 1839 and for her remaining years in Limerick, continued to teach, nurse and visit the sick and impoverished.
Bridgeman assumed a leadership role in April 1844 when the Limerick Mercy community founded a convent in Kinsale and she was appointed Superior of the newly established St. Joseph’s Convent. The fledgling community of five immediately embarked on home visits to the sick and poor and began to teach in the local school. A new school was built and opened in March 1845, which was crowded with children of all ages, the daily attendance often numbering 700.
In 1846, the famine having commenced its ravages, Bridgeman opened a soup kitchen and raised funds from various sources including the Quakers, Rome, charitable societies and America. Donations of food and clothing were also received. On 20th January 1847, the convent annals note, “the famine has now become so general that food has to be given by the Sisters twice a day to the children who with few exceptions are all starving. 600 are fed, the food consists of Indian meal, rice and biscuit.”
She employed three teachers from Limerick to teach lace and muslin embroidery to local women and in December 1847 opened a work-room to give employment in every branch of needlework. The following year a House of Mercy and orphanage were established, the latter becoming a certified industrial school in 1869.
In 1848 the annals record, “materials for the manufacturing of fish nets were purchased in order to assist the poor females of the fishery who were in great distress. They attended the school every day where they worked part of the time. Much employment was also given to numberless destitute country women in spinning hemp into twine for the nets as well as wool into yarn for knitting. No means of relieving the indigent was left untried during this time of trial”
In 1849 during a cholera outbreak in Kinsale, Bridgeman secured permission for Sisters to help in the workhouse and fever hospital and they were given leave to continue visitation of the workhouse when the epidemic was brought under control.
Bridgeman had proved to be an able administrator and leader capable of responding to challenging circumstances and in October 1854 was chosen to lead a group of fifteen Sisters of Mercy to travel to the Crimea to nurse soldiers injured during the Crimean War. The group sailed from Portsmouth on 2nd December 1854 and anchored off Constantinople on 17th December.
The Crimean mission was among the most taxing of Bridgeman’s ministry. From January 1855 through March 1856 Bridgeman and her Sisters nursed in Scutari, Kouali and Balaclava. Journals kept by Bridgeman and two other Sisters document their experiences as nurses and women religious and the joys, sorrows and difficulties they encountered. They lived and ministered in harsh physical conditions, mourned the death of two Sisters and were accused of proselytism. Bridgeman, as Leader, had a strained relationship with Florence Nightingale, who had initially rejected the group on their arrival. Bridgeman was wary of Nightingale and sought to maintain her own authority over her community of Sisters. Nightingale wanted to split the group and Bridgeman initially agreed to work with four of her Sisters in Scutari hospital. At the end of January 1855 Bridgeman moved with her remaining 10 Sisters to the general hospital at Koulali. By October 1855, Bridgeman and her community of Sisters were in charge of the hospital at Balaclava and were no longer subject to Nightingale’s authority. In March 1856, as the war neared its end Nightingale was appointed superintendent of the entire nursing corps. She arrived in Balaclava on 25th March where Bridgeman was Superintendent and the latter resigned on 28th March. Two days later, the treaty of Paris ending the war was signed and the Sisters left for Ireland on 12th April.
Letter From Sir John Hall to Mother Francis Bridgeman
In a letter to Bridgeman after her resignation, Sir John Hall, Inspector General of Hospitals wrote “I cannot permit you and the Sisters under your direction to leave… without an expression of the high opinion of your ministrations and of the very important aid you have rendered to the sick under your care…You have given me the most perfect satisfaction ever since you assumed charge of the nursing department at Balaklava, and I do most unfeignedly regret your departure, but after what has occurred, I would not, even with that feeling uppermost in my mind, urge you to stay” (Annals, Kinsale)
On her return to Kinsale, Mother Francis was appointed Mistress of Novices. In 1858 she again took up office as Superior of the community. She was re-elected to that role every alternate six years for the next 30 years. These were years of consolidation and expansion. She continued to respond to requests for the foundation of convents in Ireland and abroad, that had begun with Derby, England in 1849 followed by San Francisco in 1854. Amongst the five Sisters chosen by Bridgeman for the San Francisco mission was her aunt, Joanna Reddan who had entered in Kinsale in 1849, taking the religious name Sr. M de Sales. Subsequent foundations included Newry in 1855, Clonakilty 1856, Cincinnati 1858, Skibbereen 1860, Doon, Co Limerick 1865, and Ballyshannon, Co Donegal 1867. Sisters also went to nurse in workhouses in Youghal and Midleton, Co Cork.
Bridgeman was author of a number of works including God in His Works: a series of reading books for children, and A Guide to the Religious called Sisters of Mercy.
The lace workroom established in 1847 flourished again from the 1880s, aided by the patronage of the Irish Industries Association and the establishment of an Art Department in the convent whose students contributed designs for lace that won many awards.
Mother Mary Francis Bridgeman died 11th February, 1888 and was buried in Kinsale Convent Cemetery. A newspaper report on her death noted “Her life was one long errand of Mercy and charity. Her works in Kinsale and in the many convents of her order, which she was instrumental in founding, will endure. And though her great labours in the Crimea were never fully recognized by the British government, they are gratefully remembered today by many a man whose life she saved among the battlefields of the Crimea” (Annals, Kinsale)
Sources and further reading
Annals Convent of Mercy Kinsale
Memoir of Mother Francis Bridgeman, Kinsale Convent Archive
The Sisters of Mercy in the Crimean War. Bolster Evelyn, Mercier Press Cork, 1964
Sisters of Mercy in Limerick: series of articles first published in the Limerick Leader 1988
St. Joseph’s Convent of Mercy, Kinsale: a celebration of 150 years. Hurley, Frank, 1994
Merci Beaucoup Convent of Mercy Kinsale 1844 – 2002. O’Mahony Walters, Joanna, 2001
The Crimean Journals of the Sisters of Mercy 1854 – 1856. Luddy, Maria editor. Four Courts Press, 2004
Marianne Cosgrove
Congregational Archivist
