Modern habit of blaming nuns is completely counter to the facts

Self-appointed Scribes and Pharisees rubbish the life’s work of hundreds of hard-working women, writes Victoria White.

’Thank you.” Those are the words missing so far in the torrents which have flowed since Dr Peter Boylan stood up two weeks ago and said he disagreed with the deal the board of the National Maternity Hospital to locate their new hospital on land owned by the Religious Sisters of Charity at St Vincent’s Hospital because the sisters will retain ownership of the hospital.

It’s far from an ideal arrangement. But then it wasn’t ideal, either, that a few religious sisters should be the only ones willing to risk their necks enough to open hospitals in Dublin and Cork during the cholera epidemic of 1832. Or to work tirelessly among women convicts and their children in Parramarta, Australia. Or to open the first hospice for the dying in Harold’s Cross, Dublin, one of the first such institutions in these islands.