THE
P RTAL
October 2015
Page 21
Loreto sisters celebrate
140 years in Australia
An interesting article about the early Catholic Sisters in Australia
by Elouise Hahn, Loreto Province Communications Manager
T
his year, Loreto celebrates 140 years since the pioneering Loreto Sisters from Ireland first arrived
in Australia. Travelling to an unknown and distant land from the comforts of her home in Ireland,
Mother Gonzaga Barry stepped off the SS Somersetshire onto Australian soil on 19 July 1875.
She had come in response to an appeal by the Bishop
of Ballarat, Dr O’Connor, that the Loreto Sisters would
lead a mission and open the first Loreto School in
Ballarat, Victoria. The sacrifices Mother Gonzaga and
her nine companions made in leaving behind family
and friends to enter the unknown are still being felt
today by Loreto women and men touched by her
profound legacy.
‘Mother Gonzaga would have been very fearful to
travel so far from home, as she was not a well-travelled
person’, said Loreto Province Archivist Robin Scott.
‘However, she had a steely determination to serve
God and would have answered any call made to her.’
The 59-day journey to Victoria was long and arduous,
with accounts from the Sisters saying ‘the ship was
constantly heaving and lurching’, leaving those on
board, especially Mother Gonzaga, in a perpetual
state of sickness.
One man died during the voyage from bronchitis;
as Mother Gonzaga wrote in her diary, ‘the great cold
and damp here generally make an attack fatal. On the
last voyage, two gentlemen passengers died.’ Born into
a middle class family in Wexford, Ireland in 1834,
Mother Gonzaga was the eldest of seven children and
known fondly as ‘Mamie’. Her vocational journey
started in 1854 when, at the age of 19, she was received
as a novice at the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, a
Southside suburb of Dublin. While still a novice, at 22
she became mistress of the day school at Rathfarnham.
schools — including kindergarten, primary and
boarding schools — and two teacher training colleges,
as well as taking over the running of at least seven
parish schools. Mother Gonzaga believed the world
needed wise, loveable and well-educated women. She
was a pioneer in creating a broad curriculum that
ensured a holistic education to bring the best out of
her students so they could ‘make the world a better
place for having lived in it’.
At 25 she was appointed mistress of novices at
Gorey in County Wexford. In 1867 she was appointed
Superior of Gorey, and five years later she founded
the Loreto Convent in nearby Enniscorthy. Soon
afterwards she was asked to lead a mission to Australia,
chosen because of her success in strong leadership
roles and charismatic personality — characteristics
that continue to be instilled in Loreto women today.
Her success didn’t come without its challenges. ‘She
met huge financial difficulties and sometimes clerical
obstruction’, noted Mrs Scott. ‘But … she always
trusted that all would be as God intended. ‘The strong
foundation Mother Gonzaga and her sisters laid
continues to have a profound influence on hundreds
of thousands of Loreto women educated since the
sisters’ arrival in 1875.
During her 40 years in Australia she founded 13
This appeared in the
Ballarat Loreto Sisters’ News Magazine
contents page