Story

The Life and Work of Catherine McAuley, 1778-1841
by Mary C. Sullivan rsm

Page 3

Finally, with the advice and encouragement of three priests - Joseph Nugent, Edward Armstrong, and Michael Blake - Catherine decided to use her inheritance to build a house for poor servant girls and homeless women on Baggot Street, in a fashionable section of southeast Dublin. The foundation stone was laid in July 1824. On September 24, 1827, the feast day of Our Lady of Mercy, Catherine's adopted cousin Catherine Byrn and Anna Maria Doyle, who had offered to assist the new work, moved into the partly finished House of Mercy. Yet Joseph Nugent's death in 1825 and the death of Edward Armstrong in May 1828, cast Catherine more and more on the help of God alone, as Armstrong had counseled: "Do not put your trust in any human being, but place all your confidence in God" (Derry Manuscript, in Sullivan, Catherine McAuley, 49).

Meanwhile Catherine's sister Mary had died of consumption in August 1827, leaving five children: Mary, James, Robert, Catherine, and William (Willie), ages sixteen to six. Mary's husband Dr. William Macauley was a surgeon at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. To help the family Catherine often stayed at their home on Military Road, but went daily to work at Baggot Street, taking with her the five children as well as her young adopted cousin Teresa Byrn, age six. Hair-raising stories tell of Willie's unsupervised escapades with Catherine's horse and carriage. Then, suddenly in January 1829, Dr. William Macauley died of fever and an ulcerated throat. Catherine was now the legal guardian of nine children, including the Byrn children and two orphans she had earlier welcomed to Coolock House.

Having sold Coolock House in September 1828, Catherine moved permanently into Baggot Street in early 1829, taking the girls with her, and placing her nephews as boarders in Carlow College. In September 1828, she had written to a Carmelite priest, indicating that the House of Mercy was not a convent, nor the group of lay helpers living there a religious order, even though they shared life, work, and prayer in common, and dressed simply:

Ladies who prefer a conventual life, and are prevented embracing it from the nature of property or connections, may retire to this House. It is expected a gratuity will be given to create a fund for the school, and an annual pension paid sufficient to meet the expence a lady must incur. The objects which the Charity at present embraces are daily education of hundreds of poor female children and instruction of young women who sleep in the House. Objects in view – superintendence of young women employed in the house, instructing and assisting the sick poor.... (Sullivan, ed., Correspondence, Letter 6)