Nun of Kenmare Embattled Religious Reformer

Abstract

The Nun of Kenmare was a widely known controversial Victorian writer and figure in Ireland and America. After her death in 1899, her very
existence became a little known fact. Early in the 1960s the Poor Clare nuns in Kenmare, County Kerry in Ireland were amazed to discover her books and papers as belonging to one of their founders about the time when they were marking the centenary of the convent’s foundation. Later in the 1960s, a Dublin journalist began reading the Nun’s writings. The Poor Clares of Kenmare strove to distance themselves from the Nun of Kenmare when the Dublin journalist published books about her as pioneering feminist. During the 1970s, the Congregation of St.Joseph of Peace in America at last discovered the identity of their true founder, the Nun of Kenmare, a historical fact which surprised and continues to inspire them to lead the way in researching her life and proclaiming her radical views of church reform. Recently Irish historians have been looking into the Nun. Initial approval of “Sister Suffragette” has given
way to questioning the Nun’s eccentricity as a reformer, the Nun’s attitudes towards the hierarchical workings of the Catholic Church, the Nun’s excessive hagiographical tendencies, the Nun’s emotional entrapment in Victorianism. In response to these questions, here is presented a version of the life and works of the Nun as embattled religious reformer, still relevant to the problems within the Catholic Church in the twenty-first century.

Keywords: The Nun of Kenmare; Congregation of St.Joseph of Peace;“Sister Suffragette”.