Life
1778-1841; b. 29 Sept., Stormanstown House, Dublin; adopted on death of parents by Callanans of Coolock Hse., whom she converted to Catholicism, inheriting their fortune; establ. s school for poor and a home for working women, called House of Our Blessed Lady of Mercy, at Lwr. Baggot St., 1827; entered Presentation Convent, George’s Hill, Dublin, 1829; founded Sisters of Mercy with vows of poverty, 1831; supported by Archbishop Murray; rule approved by Gregory XVI, 1835; confirmed, 1841; became the largest women’s religious congregation in English-speaking world; d. 10 Nov.; bur. Baggot St. DIB
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Criticism
[Mary Teresa Austin Carroll,] Life of Catherine McAuley, foundress and first superior of the Institute of Religious Sisters of Mercy, by a member of the Order of Mercy, intro. by Richard Baptist O’Brien (NY & Montreal: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1880), 510pp., pls., port.; Mary C. Sullivan, Catherine McAuley and the Tradition of Mercy (Dublin: Four Courts Press 1995), 450pp. [writings by and on McAuley]; Mary C. Sullivan, The Path of Mercy: the Life of Catherine McAuley (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2012), 540pp., ill.
See also Sandra Cullen, Religion and Gender (Dublin: Veritas 2005), 221pp. [for schools; incls. lives of Nano Nagle, Catherine McAuley, Mary Aikenhead & Margaret Louise Aylward].
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