Mary Bernard Kirwan

Mother Mary Bernard Kirwan, P.B.V.M. (1797 – 27 February 1857), was the leader of the first community of Presentation Sisters in Canada and teacher.

Kirwan was born at Monivea, County Galway, to James and Ann Kirwan, in 1797. The family were one of the Tribes of Galway. Nothing appears to be known of her early life, not even her baptisimal name.

She joined the Presentation Sisters in Galway in 1823. Ten years later, Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming visited the Presentation Convent at Galway with the aim of recruiting religious sisters to teach in Newfoundland. Four Sisters, including Kirwan and Mary Xavier Molony, volunteered for the mission.

Accompanied by Fleming the nuns left Ireland on 11 August, arriving in St John’s on 21 September. One month later they opened their first school. Living in a building formerly used as a tavern, they had two bedrooms and a small parlour which served “for choir, refectory, community and all,” with the rest of the building and a nearby disused slaughterhouse for teaching.

By 1848 they were offered instruction in spelling, reading, writing, English grammar, history (both sacred and profane), geography, arithmetic, natural history (taught from a book of the Irish National Schools), spinning, and needlework. In time they also trained teachers.

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