The Correspondence of Catherine McAuley, 1818-1841 (review)

Sullivan's book, the fifth dedicated to Catherine McAuley's correspondence (like the present editor, all are members of her community), reflects her considerable importance in Irish history, and not just in her own community. For not only was she the founder of the Sisters of Mercy, the largest in Ireland and one of the largest congregations of religious women in the Catholic Church, but her significance was also reflected by her appearance on the Irish five-pound note before Ireland joined the Eurozone in 2002.

However, for well over half (1818–1831) the period covered here few sources remain, and thus this large volume deals mainly with the decade (1831–1841) before McAuley's death. The only explanation given by the editor is that the earlier material was "no doubt . . . destroyed or lost by . . . [McAuley] or others" (p. 34). There is no further attempt to explore this extraordinary gap, though, if true, why would McAuley or others destroy or lose what probably amounted to quite a large volume of correspondence? This seems a reasonable question, at least based upon the volume of letters, poems, and other documents that have survived in the latter period. And given the editor's unwillingness to cast more light on this very large gap, this reader cannot help but wonder if some pious person in the past felt it best to "protect" future generations from some potential "scandals" or, reflecting a not uncommon ahistoric view in some Catholic circles, Irish or otherwise, that history is of little or no importance unless it supports a more or less triumphalistic view of the Church's past.

Certainly most of the material that has survived paints the picture of an exceptionally kind, compassionate woman, with a healthy humility and joyful disposition, one who truly loved the work that she and the community she founded had undertaken. Its central mission was to rescue and provide a basic education for poor girls and young women who were threatened by poverty, prostitution, and, no doubt something far worse for Irish Catholics such as McAuley, Protestant proselytizers. The latter were no doubt stronger during this period, given the possible success of Daniel O'Connell's Union repeal movement. For if it were successful, with the right to sit in their own separate parliament in Dublin, Irish Catholics, the overwhelming bulk of the population, would become a very serious challenge to the still socially and politically, and even somewhat economically dominant Irish Protestant minority. A massive population growth in Ireland, which by 1840 accounted for over half the population in the United Kingdom, mainly comprised of the extremely poor Catholic cotter class, threatened social stability and the Catholic Church's attempt even to cope with, much less educate them. And while McAuley's efforts were certainly laudable, given the magnitude of the problem, they hardly scratched the surface. The British government, in an attempt to address the challenge, established the first government-funded public education system there. However, some in Britain, fearful that the experiment might backfire by increasing social discontent through the production of a now-educated Irish poor, were at least reassured that, if that were the outcome, and the experiment failed, the "mistake" could at least be isolated to Ireland and rejected elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The Irish Catholic bishops, though eager to obtain such a publicly funded system, were initially upset that it might be non-denominational, and thus outside their control. A few years after McAuley's death, the Great Famine brutally "solved" the Irish population "problem," through starvation and emigration. And, soon after this, with the government-funded National Schools System serving Catholics safely under episcopal management, the Sisters of Mercy, like other religious, male and female, turned most of their attention away from the education of the poor, who would dominate the National Schools. Instead, though still a significant minority, they began to concentrate their efforts...