Nano Nagle

Honora "Nano" Nagle ( – 26 April 1784) was an Irish Catholic religious sister who served as a pioneer of Catholic education in Ireland despite legal prohibitions. She founded the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, commonly known as the Presentation Sisters, now a worldwide Catholic institute of women religious. She was declared venerable on 31 October 2013 by Pope Francis.

Background

Nano Nagle lived during the period when the Catholic majority in Ireland were subject to the anti-Catholic Penal Laws. The Catholic Irish were denied political, economic, social and educational rights that would have lifted them from mass poverty. The parliamentarian and philosopher, Edmund Burke, a younger cousin of Nagle who spent part of his childhood in her birthplace, described those laws: "Their declared object was to reduce the Catholics in Ireland to a miserable populace, without property, without estimation, without education."

Early life

Nano Nagle was born in Ballygriffin, in the parish of Killavullen, County Cork, to Garrett and Ann ( Mathew(s) or Matthew(s)) Nagle. Though her exact date of birth is unknown, and the year of her birth disputed, Nagle is most likely to have been born in 1718. The name "Honora" given at baptism was soon replaced in the family circle by the affectionate name "Nano". She was the eldest of six or seven children, the others being Mary (omitted in many sources), Ann, Catherine, Elizabeth, David, and Joseph.

Nagle was born in the Blackwater Valley in County Cork which possesses views of the distant Nagle Mountains. Much of this region was once the property of the Nagle family.

Nagle "began to visit the sick and the elderly after school, bringing them food, medicine and comfort." However, they were unable to educate the poor widely, because at that time Ursulines were required to remain enclosed in their convents.

Nagle and her assistants continued their work without becoming an established religious congregation, so they were free to work for the poor without being enclosed. On Christmas Eve 1775, she founded the Society of Charitable Instruction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Cork, the first convent of what would later be the Presentation Sisters. She resisted the local bishop when he expressed fears that the establishment of the convent might provoke a Protestant backlash. She received the habit on 29 June 1776, taking the name of "Mother Mary of St John of God". The sisters made their first annual vows on 24 June 1777.

Legacy

thumb|Nagle's original tombstone

Nagle died from tuberculosis on 26 April 1784 in Cork city, at age 65.

In 2000, Nagle was voted Irish Woman of the Millennium, "in recognition of her importance as a pioneer of female education in Ireland." She inspired Edmund Ignatius Rice, the founder of the Christian Brothers, to bring education to the poor people. The Presentation Sisters became one of Ireland's prominent Catholic teaching orders along with the Ursulines, Sisters of Mercy, Christian Brothers, and Presentation Brothers. The Presentation order has spread to two dozen countries worldwide. Some of the schools founded by the Presentation Sisters are named after Nagle, and her teachings are still followed today. Ireland also honoured her with a pair of postage stamps for her order's 1975 bi-centenary, and with a 1985 footbridge across Cork's River Lee. Nano Nagle Place, surrounding her original 1771 convent in Cork city, includes her tomb, museum, and archive.

The Roman Catholic Church officially opened Nagle's cause for beatification in 1984, the bi-centenary of her death. She was declared a Servant of God in 1994, and Venerable on 31 October 2013.

A sculpture of Nagle, titled Nano and the Children, was unveiled at her birthplace in Ballygriffin in 2009. It was created by sculptor Annette McCormack and depicts Nano as "The Lady with the Lantern".

Background

Early life

Legacy

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading