In his history of the Diocese of Kilmore, Fr. Dan Gallogly recorded that in 1933 Bishop Finegan received a request from Sr Mary Josephine of the Presentation Sisters in Rawalpindi, Northern India, for permission to establish a convent in the diocese. Its purpose would be to recruit and train sisters for the Congregation to go out on the mission to India. The Bishop agreed and the sisters bought a house in Virginia and began a noviciate there in 1934. However, after some years the house was too small and the sisters bought Tanderagee House in Bailieborough and moved there in 1945, and that became the Presentation Convent.

In the thirty or so years from their coming to Virginia until the noviciate was closed in the early 1960s almost 80 young women from all parts of the diocese and beyond joined the sisters and went on mission to India and Pakistan. Some are still there, now working in education and pastoral care alongside a large number of Indian and Pakistani sisters who will ensure that the great work begun here will continue into the future.

In 1965 Bishop Austin Quinn asked the sisters in Bailieborough to open a co-educational secondary school to serve the needs of the people of this area. The sisters were already providing secondary education for their own novices, but expanding this to provide a full curriculum for all comers was a big challenge. However, the sisters rose to the challenge and a new school opened its doors in September 1965. The school flourished and soon built up a reputation for excellence far and wide. There are any number of people here today who can testify to its high standard of education and formation. In 1981 the Convent School and the Vocational School joined forces to become the new Community School. The entire staffs of the two schools were amalgamated. I believe only one new member of staff was appointed, an ex quota school chaplain, and I was that chaplain.

In my seven years in Bailieborough I got to know the sisters very well. Some were still teaching in the school. Others were involved in the parish in different roles, in the sacristy here, in the youth club, and in many different organisations and forms of pastoral outreach in the community. I saw at first hand the great contribution that the sisters made to the life of the town, the parish and the school. I saw how often people who were overwhelmed by troubles of one kind or another went to the convent to ask for a prayer. I saw how they were comforted and strengthened by their visits. I saw the wonderful hospitality and welcome for everybody in the convent. It was the venue for prayer groups, AA meetings, youth club events and a host of other activities. I saw the fun and the laughter on happy occasions and I saw the tears and sadness at other times. I saw friendship and love. I saw the love of God made real and tangible in the love of the sisters that I experienced myself and in the love that they shared with the people of Bailieborough.

The sisters had a special care for those who were poor or sick or in need and that care was given quietly with the greatest courtesy and discretion. I saw the deep spirituality, the lives of quiet prayer and devotion that inspired and underpinned it all. And I was moved and enriched by it and I will be forever grateful for it. And in saying that I am sure I am reflecting the sentiments of the whole community here.

Some years ago I presided at a Mass marking the departure of the Mercy Sisters from Belturbet Convent. Again, I happened to know them very well because I lived in Belturbet for years when I was growing up. I had seen at first hand what the sisters had contributed to that community. This story could be repeated in nearly every town in Ireland. In the media reaction, some weeks back, following the publication of the Ryan Report, you could be forgiven for thinking that the story of religious life in Ireland was one of unmitigated evil and abuse. There was evil and abuse and it was right that it be exposed and condemned. But that evil was a very small part of the story, an aberration and an exception. Shakespeare’s Mark Anthony said, in his oration at the death of Caesar, “the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” Let that not be the case with the Religious of Ireland. When the story of religious life in Ireland comes to be written, I hope that it will not forget the good, the enormous good, that was done quietly, secretly, unselfishly, generously and constantly, by so many devoted and dedicated sisters. And I hope and I am confident that the enormous good that was done in this diocese and beyond it, by the Presentation sisters will not be forgotten.

So now, as the last Presentation sisters, Sr Pius and Sr Breege, are about to leave us, can I, on behalf of all the people of the diocese of Kilmore, say a deeply felt and sincere thank you to all the Presentation sisters. We thank you for the wonderful grace of your presence in our Diocese for the last 75 years. We thank God for all the sisters who joined the Presentations here and went out from here to India and Pakistan to serve God’s people there. We thank their families and communities for their support and their faith. We thank God for the sisters from many different places who served here and for all whose lives were touched and healed and enriched by your presence and your prayer and your care. We will miss you. We will be the poorer for your going, but the richer for your having been here. May God reward you for your goodness and continue to bless you and your work abundantly in the future.