ST. JOSEPH'S MONASTERY

SEAPARK
MALAHIDE
CO. DUBLIN
IRELAND

Click anywhere on the panel above to view a full gallery of images from st. Joseph's Monastery

THE JOURNEY TO MALAHIDE

The first evidence we have of the presence of Carmelite nuns in Ireland is found in a reference in the Rinnucini Manuscripts, Vol. 4, p.135, and can be back-dated to the 1640's.

Still in Dublin in 1661, they probably moved to Loughrea during the Williamite Wars (1690). In 1730, the Dublin Convent was re-founded, first in Fisher's Lane (now St. Michan's Avenue) and then on Arran Quay, where they kept a boarding school, as all nuns did at the time.

In 1788, the community moved to Ranelagh, to the former Ranelagh Gardens and to a house in which the Protestant Bishop of Derry, Dr. William Barnard, had lived between 1757 and 1768. In 1785, the first balloon ascent ever attempted in Ireland was made by Richard Crosbie from Ranelagh Gardens.

In their quiet home in the Dublin suburbs the Carmelites lived their contemplative life, as St. Teresa had wished, their prayers reaching out to the whole world, to all in sorrow and distress.

An Irish Carmelite nun from the Convent of St. Denis in Paris, fleeing from the French Revolution, found refuge in Ranelagh Carmel for a time. She was Sr. Stanislaus Kavanagh and had been a novice of Madame Louise of France, who had left the court of her father, Louis XV, to become a Carmelite nun.

A notable member of their community in those early years was Sr. Ann West, grand-daughter of the Georgian stucco worker and artist, Robert West. Ann herself excelled in portrait painting. Before her death in 1829, at the age of 46, she left us remarkable portraits of her Carmelite Sisters.

But, as the Irish proverb says: "Nuair is géire an gá, is goire an cabhair". A Scottish lady, Mary Ann Hamilton, a convert to Catholicism, entered in 1846. By her mother's will, she could not alienate any of her capital during her life-time, but she could use the income from it. She made this available to the nuns, though she had to appear in court to secure it for them. The note of relief is apparent even in the account books! It was she who procured our beautiful Paschal candlestick through the good offices of a friend in Rome.

The dark years brought their legacy of anxiety and financial pressure, no strange visitors to the nuns. As time went by it became increasingly difficult to keep the old house in repair. "There is a tide in the affairs of men" and in 1975 that tide brought our community to St. Joseph's, Malahide, to continue here our contemplative witness to the presence and power of God in this 20th century world.
This convent and church are a daily reminder of the history and traditions of the Carmelites.