Catherine McAuley
In the early 1800s, our Foundress Catherine McAuley was beginning her special ministry to the poor, sick and uneducated of Dublin in a location at the corner of Baggot Street and Herbert St. – a fashionable area of the city, about 15 minutes walk away from the location of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in the RDS.
There she built the House of Mercy with the inheritance she received from Mr. Callaghan – a Quaker man who left her everything, after Catherine had taken care of his wife for 20 years, in Coolock House.
Since the opening of the House of Mercy in Baggot Street, Catherine McAuley went on to found the Sisters of Mercy, a congregation of Catholic women which today, has some nine thousand members living and working in 44 countries worldwide.