Easter Sunday Morning at Ardscull and Sr. Rita Murphy

There was an early start to Easter Sunday when in the chilling cold of our unusual March weather a hundred or so hardy souls gathered on the top of the Moat of Ardscull. The occasion was the now annual Ecumenical Prayer Service which brings the community together on one of the principal feast days of the Christian calendar. This year several African churches were represented alongside the mainstream churches as voices were raised in song atop the ancient man made mound of Ardscull.

The pleasant surroundings gave little hint of the troubled past of the “hill of the shouts” which was first recorded in the Book of Lecan as the site of a battle between the Munster men and the Leinster men in the early years of the second century.

Holinshed in his Chronicles of Ireland recounted the burning of the village of Ardscull in November 1286 and the murder 23 years later of Lord John Bonneville near to the village. Bonneville was buried in the church of the Friars Preachers in nearby Athy as were many of Edward Bruces supporters and followers following the battle of Ardscull in 1315. Somewhere between Offaly Street and the River Barrow in what was once the Friary of the Friars Preachers lie the remains of those killed almost 700 years ago in or around the village of Ardscull.

Ardscull is the location of a deserted borough being one of those many early Irish settlements which once enjoyed borough status. It was described at one time as having 160 burgages extending over quite a considerable area. There are now no traces over ground of the village but a short distance south east of the Moat lies a graveyard within which there is a raised area probably the site of the Church of Ardscull. This church was noted in the 13^th Century as being part of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

As we took our leave following the Ecumenical service the Moat of Ardscull was returned to the rooks high in their perches in the trees above us. The sound of battle which once echoed in and around Ardscull is no more while the singing and praying voices of separated churches will hopefully return in a year's time as a community comes together again to pray.

At 12 o'clock on Easter Sunday the extended family of Sr. Rita Murphy who died in America on the 6^th of March came together in St. Michael's Parish Church. Sr. Rita was the grandaughter of James McNally who for over 60 years was Sacristan in our Parish Church. I wrote of my memories of James the Sacristan in December 1993 in Eye on the Past No. 66. Sr. Rita, who as a lay person was known as Irene, was born in 1937 and lived for the first 13 years of her life with her grandfather James and the Mullery family in Convent View. She attended school with the local Sisters of Mercy and made her Confirmation in St. Michael's Church in 1948. Two years later she went to live with her parents in Dublin and at 16 1/2 years of age she entered the religious life as a postulant with the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity in America. She was to spend the next 59 years of her life in the Convent at Carrollton, Ohio where she was Superior from 1981 to 1992. Sr Rita served in many capacities as teacher, as School Principal and as Coordinator of Education in the Steubenville Diocesan Office of Education. As Superior of the Convent of St. John's Villa in Carrollton she was regarded as a kind, considerate and efficient administrator and Superior. Sr Rita Murphy passed away on the 6^th of March of this year and was interred in the Convent burial grounds three days later.

The large family group which came together to attend the 12 o'clock mass in St. Michael's Parish Church on Easter Sunday did so mindful of Sr. Rita's links with Athy and the part played in her early life by her grandfather, James McNally, whose contribution to the church was marked by the presentation of the “Bene merenti” papal medal in 1953.

James McNally and his grandaughter Sr Rita are today remembered, one for his contribution over many decades to the town of Athy, the other for her contribution over 59 years to education in the American town of Carrollton, Ohio.

Sisters of Mercy Athy and Sr. Rita Cranny

‘The idea of a convent in Athy originated with Miss Goold of Leinster Street who won the support of Fr. Patrick Byrne C.C., Mrs. Fitzgerald of Geraldine House and her daughter Ann Fitzgerald.’  These opening lines in the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy Athy were penned many years later by Fr. Thomas Greene C.C.  He noted that the sudden death of Fr. Byrne, followed soon afterwards by the passing of Ann Fitzgerald, left the matter in abeyance.  However, Ann Fitzgerald left £100 in her Will for the endowment of a local convent, following which her mother, the widow of Colonel Fitzgerald, offered the sum of £50 for the same purpose.  Patrick Maher of Kilrush similarly offered £50.  The availability of these funds prompted the parishioners of St. Michael’s Athy to convene a meeting in the Parish Church in the spring of 1843 to consider ways and means of advancing the idea first put forward by Miss Goold several years previously. 

The enthusiastic support for a convent and more particularly a convent school in Athy resulted in arrangements for a weekly collection to be taken up in the main streets of the town every Saturday night.  When Fr. Thomas Greene came to Athy on 12^th May 1843 he found a very efficient collection system in place, with £150 already collected.  The first stone of the new convent was laid in August 1844 by Reverend Laurence Dunne, P.P. of Castledermot.  Fr. Greene’s written account then refers to the ‘dreadful distress then prevalent’ which resulted in the discontinuance of the weekly collection at a time when almost £1,400 had been spent on a new convent building.  The ‘dreadful distress’ referred to in Fr. Greene’s note was of course the famine which started with the failure of the potato crop in 1845 and which was to continue until 1848 and beyond for many families.

The weekly collection resumed in 1848 when the worst of the Famine conditions had improved, but as Fr. Greene noted, ‘the old staff of collectors had been broken up and their subscribers had gone to America’.  The principal organiser of the collection was Mr. Thomas Fegan of Market Square (now Emily Square) and his efforts and those of his voluntary workers accounted for a substantial amount of the £2,035 which was incurred in building and fitting out the convent between August 1844 and December 1852. 

The convent closed in May 2000 and during its 148 years it received upward of 144 or more young women who joined the Sisters of Mercy.  On entering, postulants wore a white bonnet for the first six months and a white veil for the next two and a half years before taking their first vows three years later.  At the end of six years in the Convent perpetual vows were taken.  Postulants and nuns followed the same daily routine which started with a bell ringing out at 5.25 a.m. followed by Matins and Lauds, then private meditation for 40 minutes and Mass.  Silence was maintained at all times other than during the 45 minute recreation period late in the afternoon.  Evening Vespers was followed by 30 minutes of spiritual reading in the Convent Chapel, concluding after a further short period of recreation with night prayers and the ‘great silence’.

In 1938 Rita Cranny from Ballylinan entered the local Convent of Mercy.  She made her triennial vows on 11^th February 1941 and her perpetual vows as Sr. Rita three years later.  Like her fellow sisters she dedicated herself to the religious life and in doing so joined a religious community committed to providing education, social care and health care to the wider community of south Kildare. 

The religious orders were an important part of Irish life as far back as the early decades of the 19^th century.  Nowadays Irish Society is a more secular society and the religious orders, especially the female orders, are downsizing to the extent that in a few years time many will have disappeared.  Within our local community we are witnessing the gradual but inevitable withering of that wonderful religious order which for almost 150 years has been an enriching presence in this area. 

Last week Sr. Rita Cranny died aged 95 years and with her death is closed another chapter in the life of the Sisters of Mercy congregation in Athy.  We are indebted to Sr. Rita and her religious colleagues for their charitable work and their contribution to education and health care, first commenced in the dark days which followed the Great Famine.  Athy has changed enormously since those early days and much of those changes are due in no small measure to the educational opportunities afforded by successive Sisters of Mercy to the young people of this area.

The involvement of the Sisters of Mercy and indeed that of the Christian Brothers in the education of the Irish people played a vital part in the resurgence of this country and the recovery of national pride which underpinned the events of the early decades of the 20^th century.  Now that we are about to embark over the next few years commemorating the centenary of those events I hope we will remember the part played by Sr. Rita Cranny and past generations of the Sisters of Mercy in nurturing and instilling the national pride which helped give this country the freedom it enjoys today.