College Founders

Catherine McAuley

The Sisters of Mercy Order was founded in Ireland on 12 December 1831 when the Foundress, Catherine Elizabeth McAuley, and her two co-workers Elizabeth Harley and Anna Maria Doyle, pledged themselves to life-long membership in the Sisters of Mercy, established for 'the visitation of the sick, poor and the charitable instruction of poor females'.

Catherine was born in 1778 in Dublin and inherited a considerable fortune from her adoptive parents. Part of this money she invested in the construction of a large building, the House of Mercy, made up of classrooms, dormitories and a chapel, in Baggot Street. The house provided Dublin's poor and needy with education and welfare.

Catherine at first had no intention of founding a religious congregation but instead hoped to use volunteers. The Archbishop of Dublin did not approve of women operating any institution without the protection and authority of the Bishop. He insisted that she close the House of Mercy or found a Religious Congregation. In 1830, at the age of fifty-two, Catherine and her two friends began their novitiate training at the Presentation Convent.

The Sisters of Mercy flourished. By the time of her death in November 1841, she had founded fourteen Mercy convents in Ireland and England. During the next decade, pioneering Sisters set out from Ireland to America, Canada, Scotland and Australia to continue the work that Catherine McAuley had started.

The Sister who led the group of pioneering nuns to Australia was Ursula Frayne, who, with five other Sisters, was chosen to form a foundation in Perth, WA. Their sea voyage lasted 114 days. They established a convent in St George's Terrace in January 1846. The Sisters faced enormous problems including disease, lack of facilities, lack of money, extreme heat and barely enough Catholic children to keep the school running. However, she and her fellow Sisters kept working among the homeless, Aboriginal women and children and the newly arrived migrants to Perth.

Because of their hard work, a vast network of Mercy Schools and Hospitals were established in Perth and throughout Australia, including Aranmore (St. Mary's) in 1903.