Nagle, Nano (1718–1784)

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Nagle, Nano (1718–1784)

Irish philanthropist who, in defiance of penal legislation, established a number of poor schools and other charitable projects in Cork, introduced the Ursuline Order to Ireland, and founded her own congregation, the Presentation Order, which set a precedent for the involvement of nuns in social work. Name variations: Honora Nagle. Born Honora Nagle in 1718 (some sources incorrectly cite 1728) at Ballygriffin, County Cork, Ireland; died at South Presentation Convent, Cork, on April 26, 1784; daughter of Garret Nagle (a gentleman) and Ann (Mathew) Nagle; educated in France.

Entered a convent in France as a postulant but, convinced that her vocation lay in Ireland, returned home permanently (c. 1748); opened her first school for poor girls (c. 1755); had seven such schools, all in Cork (by 1769); launched other enterprises which included an almshouse for old women, and sick visiting and missionary work among the poor; invited the Ursuline Order to Ireland; opened first convent in Cork (1771); finding the Ursulines were prevented by their vows of enclosure from taking over all of her charitable projects, established her own congregation, the Sisters of the Charitable Instruction, later the Presentation Order (1775); received the religious habit as Sister St. John of God (1776); took her final vows and confirmed as superior of the congregation (1777).

When Nano Nagle opened her first school for poor girls sometime in the early 1750s, she was not only initiating a new departure in the field of female education, she was also acting in contravention of the law of the land. The victory in 1691 of the forces of William III over the Catholic king James II confirmed the ascendancy of the Protestant landowning class, and throughout much of the 18th century Catholics in Ireland were subject to a code of legislation which discriminated against their practice of religion, their access to education, the professions and politics, and their control of property. The extent to which the laws were applied varied widely: enforcement was strict in the early years of the century and at times of war or threatened invasion, but slackened after mid-century. Nevertheless, the main thrust of the legislation was to ensure that the ownership of land and, consequently, political influence were concentrated in Protestant hands, and in this aim it was largely successful. In 1778, when the laws began to be dismantled, Catholics, who formed about 75% of the total population, held only 5% of the land, and throughout the 18th century the Parliament in Dublin was an exclusively Protestant body.

In the field of education, Catholics were forbidden by law to teach or to operate schools, and a system of charity or "charter" schools was established, through which children might be instructed in the Protestant faith. In fact, this scheme had a limited effect, and Catholic schools continued to operate illegally throughout the penal era. However, the great majority of these were for boys. While a few convent boarding schools did exist, these were fee-paying institutions, catering for girls of the Catholic upper and prosperous middle classes. Until Nano Nagle began her work in the mid-18th century, therefore, there were no schools in Ireland which could provide a free, Catholic education to the daughters of the poor. Teresa Mulally , who in 1766 opened the first Catholic school for girls in Dublin and who was to become a close friend and associate of Nano Nagle, described the plight of these "poor children of the female sex":

They suffer all the hardships of extreme poverty; but their poverty, extreme as it is, is not the worst of their miseries. Their chief misfortune is to be without any means of instruction; for want of which they grow up in such habits of ignorance, idleness and vice, as render them for ever after not only useless, but highly pernicious to themselves and the public.

Nano herself was born into a relatively privileged sector of Irish society, the eldest of seven children of Garret and Ann Nagle of Ballygriffin in County Cork. Both parents were members of landed gentry families, and the Nagles, despite their Catholicism and their associations with the defeated Jacobite cause, had succeeded in retaining a considerable proportion of their ancestral lands. Nano was a high-spirited and vivacious child: this liveliness, according to her first biographer, Dr. Coppinger, was discouraged by her mother as behavior unbecoming in a young lady, but Garret Nagle defended his daughter and unwittingly anticipated her future career by declaring that "poor Nano would be a saint yet." Having received her earliest schooling at home, Nagle, like many other girls of her class, was sent to complete her education in France. After leaving school, she and her sister Ann remained for a number of years in Paris, where the Nagles had many friends and relatives among the Irish émigrés living there and where they enjoyed the attractions of fashionable Parisian society.

About 1746, Garret Nagle died, and Nano returned to Ireland, settling with her widowed mother and sister in Dublin. While she had, during her stay in Paris, become aware of the contrast between her own circumstances and those of the great majority of the poor, it was the example of her sister Ann which pointed her towards a more active vocation. Mother Clare Callaghan , writing around 1800, described the impact on Nagle of one particular incident and of Ann's subsequent death:

She was one day requesting her sister to get made up a splendid suit of silk which she had brought for that purpose from Paris; and she was both astonished and edified when her sister disposed of the silk to relieve a distressed family. Such an action, with the death of that sister soon after and her uncommon piety before it, wrought much on the heart of Miss Nagle and served to disengage it from the fashionable world which she had tasted and enjoyed until then.

The extent of distress in 18th-century Ireland was noted by many observers: one, writing in 1738, warned that, on arrival in Dublin, "the first thing that you'd be encountered with would be the dismal prospect of universal poverty." Nagle could not fail to notice such conditions, but her concern was as much for the ignorance of religion which she noted among the poor as for their miserable physical state. As Coppinger described it:

Her attention was soon engaged by … the ignorance of the lower classes here, their consequent immorality, and the ruin of their souls…. While they kept up an attachment to certain exterior observances, they were totally devoid of the spirit of religion; their fervour was superstitious, their faith was erroneous, their hope was presumptuous, and they had no charity.

While wishing to remedy these evils, Nagle was daunted by the difficulties involved: these included not only the restraints imposed by the penal legislation, but also the cost of such an initiative and its doubtful chances of success, as well as her own ill health. She chose instead to withdraw from the evidence of such distress, and to return to France with the intention of entering a convent there. She was unable, however, to rid herself of the conviction that her vocation lay elsewhere. Having consulted various spiritual advisers, she found that they approved her wish to return to Ireland in order to teach poor children there. Given her deep religious faith and the interaction between that and her philanthropy, this support was decisive. "Nothing would have made me come home," she told her friend, Eleanor Fitzsimons , many years later, "but the decision of the clergyman that I should run a great risk of salvation if I did not follow the inspiration."

Nano returned to Ireland, settling with her brother and sister-in-law, Joseph and Frances Nagle , in Cork. There, unknown to her family, she rented a cabin, in which she set up a school for poor girls. She later described this period to Fitzsimons:

When I arrived I kept my design a profound secret, as I knew, if it were spoken of, I should meet with opposition on every side, particularly from my immediate family as in all appearance they would suffer from it. My confessor was the only person I told of it; and as I could not appear in the affair, I sent my maid to get a good mistress and to take in thirty poor girls…. And, by degrees, I took in the children, not to make a noise about it in the beginning. In about nine months I had 200 children.

Mulally, Teresa (1728–1803)

Irish educator. Born in Ireland in 1728; died in 1803.

Teresa Mulally worked as a milliner for several years before she retired around 1762 to devote herself to charitable work. She founded the first Catholic school for poor girls in Dublin in 1766 and an orphanage in 1771, which was eventually handed over to the Presentation Order which she introduced into Dublin in 1794. Though Mulally did not take vows, she managed the affairs of the school and convent until her death.

In setting up her schools, Nano was flouting the law which forbade Catholic education, and feared that her activities would bring trouble on her family. Her brother discovered the school's existence, wrote Nagle, only when "a poor man came to him, begging of him to speak to me to take his child into my school. On which he came in to his wife and me, laughing at the conceit of a man who was mad and thought I was in the situation of a school-mistress." In fact, the Nagles suffered no ill effects as a result of her work and, having become aware of it, offered encouragement and generous financial support. From her uncle Joseph Nagle, a wealthy Cork lawyer, she inherited "the best part of the fortune I have," which she used to expand her projects. By 1769, she had seven schools in various parts of Cork, two for boys and five for girls. The curriculum within these schools was narrow, but designed to provide academic and vocational training which would equip pupils with a future means of livelihood: the boys learned reading, writing, and arithmetic, the girls reading and needlework. However, Nagle's primary concern in establishing her schools had been to offer spiritual instruction, and this was reflected in the centrality of religion in the teaching program and daily routine. Pupils heard mass, had morning and evening prayers and said the catechism together every day, and went to confession monthly. Nagle herself took responsibility for religious teaching, preparing pupils for their first communion and instructing them in the catechism. She found this aspect of her work deeply fulfilling, declaring wryly, "I often think my schools will never bring me to heaven, as I only take delight and pleasure in them."

The expansion of the schools forced Nagle to consider how they could be most effectively maintained and their survival ensured beyond her own lifetime. The obvious solution was to place them in the hands of one of the female religious orders, thus providing for their continuance within a permanent and securely Catholic structure. However, none of the communities then operating in Ireland were in a position to undertake this charge. While a few orders had remained in the country throughout the penal era, their freedom of action was restricted not only by the anti-Catholic legislation but also by the insistence of the Counter-Reformation church on the rule of enclosure for female religious, which prevented nuns from engaging in active social or teaching work outside their own convent enclosures. Nagle, therefore, turned once more to France, where the Ursuline Order had a number of schools for poor children as well as for the daughters of the French aristocracy. In response to her enquiries and encouragement, several young Irish women entered the Ursuline convent in the Rue St. Jacques in Paris in order to begin their novitiate. Meanwhile, Nagle supervised the building of a convent to receive them, and in May 1771 four novices, together with a mother superior, arrived from Paris to establish the first Ursuline foundation in Ireland, in Cove Lane in Cork. Six months later, in January 1772, the Ursulines opened a fee-paying school there. Twelve girls were admitted initially, but the demand for places soon made it necessary to extend the premises.

However, a difficulty soon arose in relation to the running of the poor schools, only one of which was situated within the Ursuline enclosure. While the Ursulines had been founded by Angela of Brescia in 1534 as an unenclosed sisterhood whose members would devote themselves to an active apostolate within the wider community, their vows were subsequently amended under pressure from the ecclesiastical authorities to include strict enclosure. In choosing the order to take over her charities, Nagle had clearly failed to appreciate the limitation on their ability to do so, and she was now forced to consider an alternative course of action. Overriding the objections of the Ursulines and of the parish priest, Dr. Moylan, she took the decision to establish an entirely new type of foundation, an unenclosed congregation, whose members would be free to undertake an active apostolate entirely among the poor. In doing so, she created a precedent for female religious orders: the establishment of the Society of the Charitable Instruction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, later the Presentation Order, marked the opening of a remarkable period of growth in Irish religious life and served as a model for the missionary and social role of nuns in 19th-century Ireland.

In January 1775, Nagle, with two associates, Mary Fouhy and Elizabeth Burke , took up residence in Nano's cottage in Cove Lane. A year later, they were joined by Mary Ann Collins , and on June 24, 1776, all four women took vows as Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Soon afterwards, the community moved to a new convent, but despite the gradual relaxation of the penal laws, the nuns were still forced to act discreetly, as Nagle's account of their move reveals:

[I] waited till the times seemed quite peaceful, yet notwithstanding we stole like thieves. I got up before three in the morning [and] had all our beds taken down and sent to the House, before any was up in the street. [I] begged of the ladies not to say a word about it to anyone … nor did [I] not let any person know if in the town of my friends, as I was sure [that by] acting in this manner the good work could be carried on much better than in making any noise about it.

Despite these misgivings, however, the nuns were allowed to continue peacefully in their work. This included not only teaching in the poor schools, but also Nagle's many other charities, notably the visitation and care of the old and sick. On Christmas Day 1777, the sisters, including Nano, inaugurated a longstanding tradition by entertaining 50 beggars to dinner, and in 1783 Nagle reported to her friend Teresa Mulally that she was building an almshouse for elderly women.

In 1778, Mulally visited Cork in order to discuss with Nagle the establishment of a similar foundation in Dublin. The meeting between the two was remembered some years later by a traveling companion, who has also left the only contemporary description of Nagle's physical appearance:

The first morning after our arrival in Cork, there came a rap at our chamber door at six o'clock…. [T]here entered a little elderly woman with a shabby silk cloak, an old hat

turned up, a soiled dark cotton gown, and a coarse black petticoat, drabbled halfway and dripping wet—for it had rained heavily. When she announced her name to be Nagle, they embraced for the first time with hearts congenial…. Miss Mulally introduced me to her. I asked her was she not afraid of taking cold. "No," she replied, "I was once susceptible enough of it, but now I feel nothing."

Despite her age and worsening health, and the austerities and penances to which she subjected herself, Nagle continued to participate fully in the work of her foundation. On the day before the onset of her final illness, her colleague Sister Angela Fitzsimons told Mulally, "She went as usual to all her schools, and was penetrated with rain, as of late she walked so slow." On the following day, Nagle set out as usual, but was forced by weakness to turn back. She died a few days later, on April 26, 1784, and was buried in the graveyard of the Presentation Convent which she had founded.

In the years immediately following Nano Nagle's death, her community encountered a number of crises. The funds which she left in her will for its support were misappropriated by the administrator of her estate, and new aspirants were slow to come forward. In 1793, however, a new foundation was established in Killarney, and by the end of the century the Society also had houses in Dublin and in Waterford, and a second foundation in Cork. During the 19th century, it established itself all over Ireland as well as in England, the United States, Newfoundland, Australasia, and India as the Presentation Order. However, Nagle's importance lies not merely in the success of her own sisterhood. Her congregation was the first example of a new pattern of female religious life, which in the next century allowed nuns to become involved in the running of a whole range of work projects, including the management of hospitals, orphanages, hostels, and industrial schools. Above all, however, nuns were to play a vital part in the development of educational opportunities for Irish Catholic girls. These achievements were not confined to Ireland, a fact which would have delighted Nagle. "I can assure you my schools are beginning to be of service to a great many parts of the world," she told a friend in 1769, "and my views are not for one object alone. If I could be of any service in saving souls in any part of the globe, I would willingly do all in my power." Through the expansion of the Presentation Order and the work of many thousands of other Irish nuns abroad, these hopes were realized, and the work of Nano Nagle assumed an international as well as a local significance.

sources:

Coppinger, Dr. The life of Miss Nano Nagle, as sketched … in a funeral sermon preached in Cork on the anniversary of her death. Cork, 1794.

O'Rahilly, Professor Alfred. "A letter about Miss Mulally and Nano Nagle," in Irish Ecclesiastical Record. 5th series. Vol. XL, 1932, pp. 474–481, 619–624.

Walsh, T.J. Nano Nagle and the Presentation Sisters. Dublin, 1959.