Our Story
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And on to Maitland, New South Wales
On the other side of the world, the diocese of Maitland was created in 1866, and the bishop-elect approached the young Kingstown community – made up of cousins and other connections of his – for some support. The new diocese was huge, extending to the Queensland border, and westward as far as could be reached. Catholic education was a priority. Dr Murray was realistic enough to see that a couple of groups of religious from Ireland would scarcely scratch the surface. Dominican Sisters provided a unique possibility. Not only could they continue the work of the schools for the less fortunate, as did the Josephites and Good Samaritan Sisters, but they could also educate young women who would have the financial backing and social standing to become the first of generations of Catholic teachers for the people of the Maitland Diocese.
The Kingstown community responded willingly to the need for education in the faith in "a foreign land 'neath an alien sky, among an unknown people" and fully supported Mother M Agnes Bourke and her seven companions who volunteered to come. Like the Irish women before them, they took a great risk for the sake of the Gospel, confident that they could make a difference. After an eventful journey on the Martha Birnie, they arrived in Maitland on 10 September 1867 – 220 years to the day after the initial foundation in Galway.
The Journey to Australia
In 1958 our first Sister to visit our 'motherhouse' at Dun Laoghaire, Sr M Norbert Hall, was given to bring home an account of the voyage to Australia on the Martha Birnie in 1867. This fascinating, humourous, detailed and free spirited description of a horrendous journey of 81 days on the high seas, aboard a tiny sailing ship, introduced us to Mother M Agnes Bourke and our other pioneer Sisters, and the sacrifices they were making, their sense of adventure, and the depth of their commitment to Catholic education in a way that nothing else could.
Travelling by sailing ship was not for the fainthearted! Even in the late 1880s, one in ten British sailing ships was lost at sea, and one in twenty crewmen lost his life. There exist only about 850 diaries of this period, and just 14% by women. About 400,000 Irish emigrants arrived in Australia during the 19th century, but only a handful of Irish diaries was found. We have two so we are blessed indeed.
That first journey and the details of the other 5 voyages undertaken by the 35 young women who were to become the backbone of our young Congregation would make a great film! Leavetaking, sea sickness, total lack of privacy, unfriendly priest companions, shipwreck, a sister buried in the deep, impossible accommodation, cockroach plagues, fear of the high seas, dominos, making rosary beads; hours and hours of sitting on deck, sometimes hanging on for dear life; a stowaway; exchange of recipes with the black cook from Barbados; wondering how everyone is back in Ireland; confidence in the prayers of their sisters for their safety; disappointment at first sight of the Southern Cross; displays of relics, black dresses, trunks, suntans, concussion, soakings, unrelenting sea sickness, stray pigs, shark sightings, sea birds, porpoises, passing ships, copious quantities of champagne – that wonderful stomach settler....
By the time they arrived in Sydney the Sisters loved the new land – just for being there! These cultured, well-educated women knew each other well by the end of the voyage, and each one was different on arrival to the person who set foot on the boat in dear old Ireland! In 1867 Archdeacon MacEncroe reportedly told Bishop Murray, with tears in his eyes, that "a finer batch of nuns has never come to the colony"!
The statistics reveal an amazing picture. Between 1867 and 1888, 35 young women connected with St Mary's Kingstown/Dun Laoghaire volunteered to come to the other side of the world, knowing that they could never return home. Only 13 of them had been professed for more than 1 year. 18 of them were under 25. It is all there – that singlemindedness, that 'holy naivite', for the sake of the Gospel – in the spirit of Julian Nolan and Mary Lynch, their sisters of Channel Row, and the risk takers of Cabra – that strong sense of Mission – "Up she gets, for up she must!" regardless of personal cost, with perhaps a sniff of a sense of adventure! They were full-bodied, warm blooded women who were faced with hard work, totally alien conditions and wild colonial children. Unlike other migrants to Australia, who came to make a better life for themselves, our sisters were ready to provide a better life for others. They had no concept of their future – but they never doubted that they had one. They had confidence in their own ability to make a difference, at the frontier, where no one else was.
The 1867 annotated diary is available as Up She Gets, For Up She Must from the Archives.
Early Days in Australia
For 8 years they remained the only Congregation of women in the diocese. Within 50 years they were joined by a further 26 Irish women – 20 of whom were one year or less professed – and 138 Australian Sisters. They had founded communities and schools in Maitland, Newcastle, Tamworth, Sydney, Moss Vale and Mayfield and set up a school for children with impaired hearing at Waratah.
The Community today
Today, after 141 years, Dominican descendents of the Maitland pioneers are found ministering in the Solomon Islands, Queensland, NSW, ACT, Victoria and Tasmania. Our 119 Australian Sisters and 23 Solomon Islands Sisters are involved in primary, secondary, tertiary, special education, administration and research; country and city parish ministry; RCIA; Eucumenics; hospital and university chaplaincy; in nursing and family planning; retreat centres and spiritual direction; pastoral care, counselling and welfare; working among aboriginal and migrant communities; with the materially poor, with those who have a physical or intellectual handicap, drug and alcohol dependency and Aids; with the homeless; with those in prison and their children and with asylum seekers.
We value our partnership with our Associates, Dominican friars and laity through membership of the Dominican Family, with its headquarters at Santa Sabina in Rome. Together with three other congregations of Dominican women in Australia we form the Federation of Dominican Sisters of Australia, and we rejoice in being foundation members of Dominican Sisters International.
We continue to discern and articulate our charism as Australian Dominican women, and live out a pastoral plan that encourages us, in the footsteps of those wonderful women who have gone before us, to be vital, open, effective and faithful in our response to the call to preach the Gospel in the contemporary world.
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