LIVING in silence and prayer, former president Mary McAleese enjoyed a cloistered existence for a number of days each year with the Poor Clare nuns.
"She came in and lived like one of us," the abbess of the Ennis convent, Sr Gabriel, said yesterday.
The then-president joined in suppertime storytelling and gave a helping hand washing dishes.
Sr Gabriel yesterday spoke publicly for the first time on the close bonds between the former president and the enclosed order.
"President McAleese has been great. She has been such an inspiration to us. She comes in, no mobile phone, no nothing, she relinquishes everything."
Sr Gabriel said Mrs McAleese spent three or four days with the Poor Clares in Ennis every year during her 14 years in office, along with spending time on retreat with the nuns this year.
The abbess said: "President McAleese would be washing your dishes and you’re embarrassed, thinking ‘The President of Ireland is washing my dishes!’
"In a way this was the only place she was Mary McAleese. She wasn’t the president, she could just be Mary and feed her own inner life to recharge herself for her duties. She is just so ordinary, so real— that is why the world took to her."
In 2008, during a public visit to the monastery, Mrs McAleese had confirmed her private time spent with the nuns — who take a vow of poverty — every year since she became president in 1997, when she launched the Poor Clares’ golden jubilee celebrations in the county town.
The links between the Poor Clares and Mrs McAleese came after Ennis solicitor Michael Houlihan introduced ther to the nuns in 1997.
"On her way out on that visit, she asked ‘Could I possibly come back here for a retreat?’," said Sr Gabriel.
Living at the monastery, Mrs McAleese would join the nuns in their daily regime, getting up each morning at 5.45am for prayer as part of a cycle of prayer seven times each day.
Sr Gabriel said that, along with joining the nuns in prayer, "President McAleese would have her own quiet reflective time".
For breakfast, she would sit down with the nuns for porridge or cereal and tea, while the midday lunch menu typically consisted of macaroni, mash potatoes, vegetables and dessert, and the nuns would have cheese, tomatoes and toast at tea-time.
The president also observed silence throughout each day, apart from evenings when stories were told.
Sr Gabriel said: "Mary McAleese loves coming here. She is a very good friend of the community."
Today, a photograph of Mrs McAleese hangs on the wall of the main corridor in the monastery and is signed by the former president: ‘Much love to my dearest sisters, Mary’.
Sr Gabriel recalls that when President McAleese first came to stay with them in 1997, "we thought, ‘oh gosh, what will this mean?’ We were exercised and giving her the time and space she wanted. And she asked ‘can I join your recreation at tea time?’
"And the stories from her — press a button and you would have story after story."
Sr Regina added: "She is just one of us when she is here. She would arrive in a lovely designer trouser suit and she would go up to her room and she would be back down in her Dunnes Stores best for the time here. She does appreciate our life here and understands it."
Sr Bernadette said that spending time at the monastery each year "recharges President McAleese. She is a very, very good Catholic woman."
"Her time here has been very enriching for us as well," said Sr Bernadette. "She would be walking around the garden saying her rosary, be at Adoration reading her Bible. She is a wonderful woman."
The former president, she added, "has a great understanding of our prayer life".
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, December 31, 2011
