Convent of the Sisters of Mercy
July 1, 1837
Dr Andrew Fitzgerald, OP
Carlow
My Dear Reverend Father
I received your kind letter, which was very consoling to me. Robert1 seemed delighted with your invitation, and had every hope of getting leave to go.
It has pleased Almighty God to visit us with another affliction. We have just sent a fine young Sister to the tomb.2 She died on the tenth day of violent fever. She was exactly like a person in cholera – cold and purple coloured. Some kind of circulation was kept up by wine, musk cordials and warm applications, but no hope of recovery from the first 3 days.
As the Archbishop appointed this day we were obliged to go through our ceremony and had four Professed and two received this morning.3 My poor little Catherine is cheerful as ever, but no symptoms of recovering strength.4 A new Sister entered yesterday5, and another is to come on Sunday.6 This is five in a few weeks. I believe we are to go to Cork on Wednesday.7 Doctor Murphy has waited for us as long as he could.
Begging you to give my most affectionate love to my dear Sisters, and assured that you will not forget to pray for me, I remain, my dear Revd. Father
With great respect and gratitude, you attached
Mary C. McAuley
1 Robert Macauley, Catherine’s nephew.
2 Mary Aloysius (Margaret) Thorpe, a Novice, died of typhus on June 30th, 1837, the day before this letter. She had entered the convent on July 23rd, 1836, and received the habit on January 25th, 1837. Hers was the third death at Baggot Street in less than five months.
3 The four Sisters who Professed their religious Vows on July 1st, 1837, were Teresa (Mary) Carton, a lay Sister; Angela (Mary) Brennan, a lay Sister; Mary Monica (Anna) Murphy, and Mary Vincent (Margaret) Deasy (see Letter 44). The two who received the habit were Mary Francis Xavier (Jane) O’Connell and Mary Vincent (Anna Maria) Harnett.
4 Young Catherine Macauley, Catherine McAuley’s niece, was suffering the final stages of consumption.
5 Elizabeth Blake entered on June 30th, 1837. She will later take the name Mary Gertrude at her reception of the habit on February 21st, 1838.
6 The Baggot Street Register does not list any woman who entered on Sunday, July 2nd, 1837. The woman who entered that day may have left before Profession of Vows and thus would not be in the Register.
7 The new convent of Sisters of Mercy in Cork was founded on July 6th, 1837. The founding party travelled by steam boat from Dublin to Cork. In the group were Mary Clare (Georgiana) Moore, the new Superior, Mary Josephine (Sarah) Warde, Mary Vincent (Margaret) Deasy and Mary Anastasia (Caroline) McGauley, a Novice (Dr John Murphy had asked for “four”), as well as Catherine McAuley and Mary Teresa (Amelia) White, her travelling companion. If the party departed from Dublin on Wednesday, as Catherine indicates, they would have left by boat on the night of July 5th.
