Poor Clare nuns ‘on a high’ over Downton Abbey

BEING contemplative doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the craic and even a contemplative has to go Christmas crackers once a year.

And, while austerity is nothing new to the enclosed order of Poor Clare nuns in Ennis, sacred vow doesn’t have to mean solemn.

“It must be the Ecstasy tablets,” jokes Abbess Sr Gabriel to explain the fun and joy the 11 nuns share behind closed doors, particularly on Christmas Day.

“We’ll be having a glass of wine as well, but don’t ask how big!” she says while her fellow contemplative, Sr Regina, can hardly contain her excitement.

Tomorrow will be her 28th Christmas Day spent at the monastery where the nuns will enjoy a Christmas menu including melon, soup, turkey and ham, and pudding.

Entertainment will include a marathon TV box set of another contemplative order of sorts — Downton Abbey. “We’re told it’s very good,” says Sr Regina, adding that all of the food and drink — and Christmas crackers — come from public donations, with one woman from Clonmel sending a wrapped present for each of the sisters each year.

Sr Regina says: “People are fantastic. They are our bread and butter and they want us to have a nice dinner for Christmas.

“It is a family day and we do what families do.”

The Poor Clares are in Ennis since 1958 and Sr Bernadette has been in the monastery for the past 53 years.

She says: “It has been a good life. I can honestly say that while we have lived an extraordinary life in the sense that it is so different, I felt being away from life outside and maybe not doing things I would have loved to do, I still feel that I am the person that the Lord meant me to be.”

Sr Gabriel says: “No two days are the same here. There is always something happening. You wouldn’t change your life for anything. No regrets. We have followed the dream.”

Sr Bernadette says: “I am always amazed that people pick up a certain joy when they come in here. We never put it on. It is just us.”

This prompts Sr Gabriel to joke: “It must be the Ecstasy tablets.”

And while the nuns don’t normally venture beyond the walls of the monastery, they are well aware of the impact the recession is having, with people regularly calling to the door for support and prayer. Sr Gabriel says: “We have our finger on the pulse.”

She says the nuns watch the news every night: “The world’s troubles are our concern.”