Sisters bow out after 168 years

The direct involvement of the Sisters of Mercy in primary education is almost at an end in a Kinsale school where six nuns first taught 700 girls at the end of the Great Famine.

St Joseph’s National School stands on the same site at the top of the town where the first classes were held in 1845.

But the 130-pupil school will amalgamate next autumn with nearby St John’s primary school, a smaller school with around 60 boys enrolled.

The resultant new school — Scoil Naomh Eltin Cionn tSáile — will move in 2014 to a new school building down the hill from the convent grounds in place of St John’s. Classes for children and staff in the merged school will be taught on the current grounds of St Joseph’s while building work goes on over the next year.

But the developments bring an end to the direct role of the Mercy order in the day-to-day operations of the school, where boys are taught up to senior infants. After a Mass yesterday to recognise their contribution, St Joseph’s board of management chair Sr Mary Donovan said the order will continue to take an interest in local education matters.

“While it may be an end for the Mercy school in Kinsale, the Sisters of Mercy will hope to always support education in the town,” she said.

The looming summer holidays will also see the retirement of the last Mercy nun working at the school, as senior infant teacher Sr Genevieve O’Keeffe draws a close to her career in teaching.

As well as educating poor Catholic children from the area, the nuns in the school’s earliest days also helped them to feed themselves. They went to Belfast to learn to make fishing nets, skills which were then taught locally during the latter stages of the Famine when there were fish but no potatoes.

Principal Susan O’Hanrahan said the staff are honoured to be part of the sisters’ great tradition.

“We will bring their ethos with us as we move forward and evolve into a bright and promising future,” she said.