The Russell Sisters and the Convent of Mercy

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The Emmanuel Chapel is Romanesque in design, using local granite on the exterior, an altar of Carrara marble, with a mosaic floor and polished red granite pillars and French polished Australian oak stalls.

Catholic emancipation in 1829 and a post-famine ‘devotional revolution’ in Ireland resulted in increased church attendances and church buildings. Large numbers of women entered convents between the 1840s and 1900s. The 1911 census reveals how nuns outnumbered teachers, nurses and midwives.

50 Queen Street, Newry, where the three Russell sisters, daughters of Arthur and Margaret Russell were born. Newry & Mourne Museum Collection 50 Queen Street, Newry, where the three Russell sisters, daughters of Arthur and Margaret Russell were born. Newry & Mourne Museum Collection — 50 Queen Street, Newry, where the three Russell sisters, daughters of Arthur and Margaret Russell were born. Newry & Mourne Museum Collection

The first House of Mercy was founded by Catherine McAuley in Baggot Street, Dublin, in September 1827, using an inheritance from Mr and Mrs William O’Callaghan, the wealthy protestant couple who had raised her. The house was a place for sheltering and educating women and girls. On the 12^th of December 1831, Catherine and two others became the first Sisters of Mercy.

Photograph of Mary Baptist Russell, from ‘The Three Sisters of Lord Russell of Killowen’, written by their brother Father Matthew Russell (1912). She spent four decades establishing schools, hospitals and refuges for women all over the northern part of California. She is commemorated in the Sisters of Mercy Memorial in front of the State Capitol Building in Sacramento. Newry & Mourne Museum Collection

Other convents were established throughout Ireland. In Kinsale a convent was established in 1844 and it was here that two of the three sisters from the Russell family, born in Newry and raised in Killowen, would enter the novitiate. Katherine professed in August 1891 and became known as Mary Baptist. She was part of a contingent sent to California to establish a convent there in 1854, around the time of the ‘Gold Rush’.

Layout of the Convent of Mercy, which ran from Canal Street to Catherine Street, from an 1861 Ordnance Survey map of Newry. Soldiers stationed in the town helped to lay the garden paths in the grounds. Newry & Mourne Museum Collection

Elizabeth, who became known as Mary Aquin was allowed to enter the same novitiate on the stipulation of the Rev Dr Michael Blake that she could return with her dowry to Newry, where he had arranged for the establishment of a convent. On the 26^th of June 1855 a small group of nuns and clergy came from the mother house in Kinsale. The group included Father Patrick O’Neill, Sister Catherine O’Connor, Mother Superior Elect Sister M Agnes Burke, Sister Elizabeth Martin, Sister Mary Aquin Russell and Sister Brigid (both novices).

The new temporary convent was Ogle’s big house, with a garden and a plot of waste ground in Canal Street. The property was bought with funds raised by local clergy and townspeople. Mrs Margaret Russell, the mother of the sisters had offered to give property in Ballybot, but the situation of the houses was deemed unsuitable, and the offer was declined.

Sister Mary Aquin was the first nun to be professed in Newry as a Sister of Mercy on the 26^th of March 1856. She would go on to help establish a branch convent in Rostrevor, where she was placed in charge in June 1865. Troubled by ill health she died in 1876. In 1858, the youngest sister, Sarah, entered the novitiate in the Newry convent. She became known as Mary Emmanuel.

Work began on the Catherine Street convent in 1860, with the laying of the foundation stone on the 27^th of August. It opened almost exactly two years later and was blessed by the Right Rev Dr Leahy on the 25^th of August 1862 and could accommodate 40 to 60 nuns. Burke’s architects and Byrne’s builders, both Newry companies, created the four-storey building, with a frontage of 101 feet, costing £4,000. It was designed in the Italian style and built of local granite.

Funds were raised through events, concerts and bazaars as well as through bequests. The Russell family were significant donors. On the 20^th of March 1855, Mrs Margaret Russell gave £700 and when she died in August 1867, she left her fortune to her daughters, in effect to the convent.

In 1868, Mary Emmanuel took charge of the newly established convent in Lurgan. She returned to Newry in 1878, where she became Rev Mother. During her tenure branch convents were also established in Bessbrook (1883) and Warrenpoint (1888). She died on her 71^st birthday, the 8^th of March 1902. Both Mary Emmanuel and Mary Aquin are buried in the cemetery in the grounds of the convent.

Lady Ellen Russell of Killowen, wife of Lord Russell, Lord Chief Justice of England and sister-in-law to the three Russell nuns, donated £3,000 in 1902. This money was used to build the Emmanuel Chapel, which was designed by John Brown and built by Denis Neary who were both Newry men. The foundation stone was laid on the 9^th of July 1902 by Most Rev Dr Henry O’Neill and was finished in July 1904. Father Matthew Russell S.J., a brother of the Russell sisters preached at the inauguration.

The next article will look at how the nuns began their work helping the poor and educating those less well off in Newry.

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