BY JOHN FITZGERALD
Callan has said goodbye to a saintly nun who was also an exceptionally gifted teacher and author.
Sr. Assumpta Saunders was for decades a leading light at the Convent of Mercy in Callan. She passed to a better world at the age of one-hundred on October 19th while in the care of Waterford University Hospital.
She was one of the dedicated sisters who brought the local convent to fêted national prominence as a centre of learning.
Norah Saunders was 18 when she left her native Mullagh in County Clare in 1944 to join the convent in Callan.
She recalled that in her childhood and teenage years, almost every family had at least one nun. Girls leaving school had limited options: realistically they could try for teaching, nursing, or the Civil Service, but Norah felt God calling her to serve in a religious order. This conviction grew the more she reflected on it and prayed for guidance. She was in no doubt about where her future lay.
She took the name Assumpta, and almost from the day she arrived in Callan, she made her mark teaching English and Irish at the convent school.
She saw to it that every pupil received equal attention, in accordance with the time-honoured holistic philosophy of the Mercy Sisters who placed an intrinsic value on the wellbeing and intellectual development of the girls.
Exams were important, but not the only priority in preparing young minds for the world beyond the classroom.
She graduated with a Master of Arts degree in 1972 and a PhD in English at UCC in 1977. In 1959 opened the girls’ boarding school at the convent wherein she transformed the lives of many who she helped overcome the challenges of an ever-daunting school curriculum.
Vocations to the Mercy Order seemed to run in the family as Assumpta’s two sisters, Mona and Marie Therese joined.
They gave decades of service to the order, and it was under the inspired direction of the late Sister Marie Therese that St Brigid’s College at the convent became one of the most successful second level schools in Ireland. It was testament to her dedication and that of the teachers, lay and religious.
After her retirement, Sister Assumpta devoted much of her time to historical research into aspects of the Mercy Order and to recording the oral history of the Callan nuns and their long association with the district.
June 2022 brought mixed feelings of sadness and hope for Sister Assumpta and the other nuns in Callan when St Brigid’s closed its doors as a girls’ secondary school to merge with Coláiste Éamann Rís and form a co-educational establishment known as Coláiste Abhainn Rí.
For Sister Assumpta it was a major milestone in the long history of the convent, and the lengthy chapter of her own eventful life there.
Among the hundreds of tributes to Sister Assumpta are moving messages of thanks and appreciation from former boarders.
They recall her as a kind and gentle human being, with a caring personality, and as being always supportive of them in their studies.
A perfectionist and a true professional from the outset, she gave herself completely to education, and this showed magnificently in the academic achievements of the convent girls. Some who were boarders in the 1960s describe her as “inspirational” and someone who changed their lives for the better.
Others remember her lovely smile and kind words in an era when smiles and kindness could be in short supply, especially in the halls of academia.
Some women attribute a life-long love of English literature to their time at the convent under her tutelage, and Assumpta’s devotion to the Irish language likewise left boarders with an enduring grá for the Gaeilge
Others again are grateful for the life values she taught them, that have stood the test of the decades in a changing world.
A theme that runs through many of the tributes is that she continued to offer help and advice to boarders even after they left the convent.
Sister Assumpta was pre-deceased by her parents Francis and Margaret, brothers Fr. Seán (Ennis) and Francis and her sisters Sr. Marie Thérese and Sr. Mona.
Also missed by her loving family, her sister Eva Rahilly, Quinn, Co. Clare, her nieces, nephews-in-law, grandnieces, grandnephews, The Sisters of Mercy, Callan and The Southern Branch and friends.
Weaving a thread
Sister Assumpta’s acclaimed book, Weaving a thread through the first 50 years is the enthralling history of the Sisters of Mercy in Callan.
It details how the Mercy Sisters arrived in Callan in 1872, a year fraught with tension and conflict as the notorious schism ripped the town apart.
Rebel PP Fr Robert O’Keeffe, a stubborn but forward-looking pastor had tried to introduce a French Order of Nuns to Callan without the bishop’s approval.
The bishop, an equally stubborn and resolute cleric, thwarted his efforts and instead invited the Mercy Sisters to set up in town.
Mindful of the local sensitivities and the on-going faction fights in the town square and in the streets, the nuns steered clear of the hostilities and immediately set about kick starting a school.
Up to then the girls of the district would be lucky to know their ABCs, as only wealthy families could afford education.
Within months of their arrival, the nuns had made a big impact. They applied their highly developed artistic, cultural and musical skills to perfection, bequeathing the precious gift of learning to a town in dire need of it.
They also established a convent at Callan Workhouse, providing top-notch nursing at an otherwise forbidding institution, with its grim famine legacy.
Her book deals with the first half century of the order in Callan, but has evoked memories for many former pupils of their own years in the classrooms and playgrounds.
The collection of old photographs in the book tug at the heartstrings. The stunning cover partly honours the memory of the great Sister Marie Therese availing of an embroidered design by her that shows a thread weaving gracefully through those 50 years referred to in the title.
Sister Assumpta also co-authored a biography of the poet/nationalist Joseph Campbell.
