Monday May 12th

Today is our last day here in Cork and it started off as a beautiful day with blue skies and the sun shining.  

We spent the day visiting the sisters at the two Presentation Convents here. All of the nuns here are quite old and long retired from teaching but they really seemed to enjoy our visit.  

The delightful, and diminutive, Sister Lucy took us on a 3 hour walking tour of the old city of Cork where Nano Nagle lived a large part of her life.  

As luck would have it, this was when the weather changed.  

Nano was the founder of the Presentation order, the order of nuns which set up St Mary’s College where I work. She set up secret schools for catholic Irish children who, by the law of the times, were not allowed to receive an education, and she visited and assisted the elderly and sick, setting up homes for women who had worked in the houses of the wealthy but who were no longer able to work and had no means of support. Today, the Presentation Sisters are continuing this work in Ireland.  As the Presentation Brothers have done, the Sisters have turned much of their property into social housing (for people on low incomes) because their dwindling numbers mean that they no longer require the space they once did. 

At the North Convent notice of our impending arrival was written up on a board and when we arrived an announcement was made over the PA and the nuns appeared from all quarters to entertain us and show us around.  They plied us with freshly made scones and their special whiskey laced fruitcake.  Quite tasty!  

The children at the Presentation school attached to the convent had a pretty impressive kitchen garden from which they kept the sisters supplied with fresh salads and herbs.

We will have had 5 nights here at the Ambassador Hotel in Cork and it has been good to stay in one place for a while. We will be spending the next two nights at Ballygriffin in Mallow.  Ballygriffin was the family home where Nano spent a fairly privileged life until she decided that she needed to do something about all the poverty and suffering that she saw around her.  

During my time I Cork I have gained a much better appreciation of the role that the congregations of Brothers and Nuns have played in supporting a large section of the Irish community who really had no one else to turn to.  These people have played a really important part in the lives of the less affluent people of Ireland.  

PS. One thing that has struck me in Cork (and maybe I will find the same thing in the other parts of Ireland that we visit) is the number of churches. Within less than 5 minutes walk of our hotel are at least 3 Catholic churches and one Church of Ireland church.  Nearly as many as the pubs.