A special open-air Mass to allow the school to say farewell – prior to the final departure from Mullingar of the only two remaining Presentation nuns living in the town, Sr. Annette O’Brien and Sr. Catherine Brosnan – was celebrated in Presentation School grounds on Friday afternoon last, 12 September.
The occasion amounted to an expression of gratitude and thanks to the Presentation Sisters for their enormous contribution to education in the town and parish of Mullingar since they first came in 1825. Today, many relatively new Mullingar families would no longer be aware of the huge educational contribution made by the Presentation nuns over so many decades, but many long-time residents are still aware of it. In a secular era, when ‘knocking’ clergy and religious at every opportunity has become something of a national media obsession, it was a refreshing change to see genuine achievements acknowledged.
Friday’s Mass, celebrated by Rev. Padraig McMahon, Mullingar Adm., and attended by hundreds of school pupils as well as the teachers and other school staff, enjoyed ideal weather conditions. The offertory procession gifts were brought up by Sr. Annette and Sr. Catherine, former Principal, Carmel Hickey – the first lay principal in Presentation – and Marie Therese Cotter, representing the Parents’ Association and the Board of Management. Following the Mass, roses were specially blessed by Fr. McMahon, and youthful pupils participated in a short ceremony, which demonstrated the total commitment the nuns of Presentation have made to Mullingar since the year 1825.
The children brought the roses to the nuns’ small burial ground beside the school building, and placed a rose beside each of the crosses marking the graves of nearly fifty Presentation nuns whose remains lie there.
Speaking during the Mass Fr. McMahon described to the schoolgoers, in simple terms, just how long the Presentation Order has worked for the young people of the town and how Sr. Catherine and Sr. Annette were now the last two Presentation members still in Mullingar, and about to leave. “One hundred and eighty nine years ago, the first Presentation sisters came on a boat along the Canal to Mullingar. They came because the priests and bishop at the time saw that many children were without a school and without enough to eat, and they invited the Sisters to come here and help.”
He told Sr. Annette and Sr. Catherine that they were availing of this opportunity as a school community to say thanks to them, as Presentation representatives, for the huge contribution which their Order had made over all those years to Mullingar parish.
“Some of those Sisters are still with us – they are buried here and that is the most visible sign of their total commitment,” he remarked.
Fr. McMahon said it was sad that after so many years, the Presentation sisters were now leaving the town, and the parish would be the poorer as a result, and they would be missed, but people would not forget the contribution they made.
Fr. McMahon also referred to the work of the Presentation sisters abroad, working amongst people “like those in Mullingar when they first came here.”
On Friday, 21 November, Bishop Michael Smith will celebrate a special Mass of Thanksgiving in the Cathedral, to allow the community to acknowledge the contribution which the Sisters of Presentation made to Mullingar.
