A convent in Newry is set to feature in a new documentary examining the role of religious sisters in Ireland.
The RTÉ programme, The Last Nuns of Ireland, follows journalist and broadcaster Dearbhail McDonald as she returns to her home city to investigate how nuns shaped Irish lives, including her own, for better or for worse.
She examines the role of female religious sisters in Ireland, from earliest times to the present day and asks whether the achievements of these women can be acknowledged amid the legacy of abuse scandals.
The average age of nuns in Ireland is now over 80 - and the supply of vocations to religious life has slowed to a trickle.
In a society where ‘the nuns’ once ran practically every element of education, healthcare and social services, Ms McDonald asks herself if she is ready to look at their contribution in the round.
Newry was the location for the first established convent in Ulster since the reformation.
Ms McDonald spent 14 years at two local schools run by the Order of St Clare.
Returning to Newry, she meets Sr Julie McGoldrick, her former teacher, who is now Mother Abbess of the Sisters of St Clare’s in Ireland.
As she makes her way around the island of Ireland, meeting a combination of religious and academics, she gains a deeper insight into the circumstances in which nuns and sisters came to be so firmly embedded in the lives of towns and villages – in Ireland as well as abroad.
However, nuns were also linked to the Church related scandals which emerged in the 1990s and 2000s.
Speaking on camera for the first time, several sisters tell their side of those controversies.
They speak about their shock and dismay at learning about the scandals, the challenges to their own faith and how they have had to deal with negative perceptions of their legacy to Irish society.
Some sisters said they feel that religious life is at an end, whilst others are convinced there will always be a place for nuns in Irish society.
For Ms McDonald, this process makes her examine her own preconceptions of religious life and question how current and future flashpoints involving the State and the Catholic Church in Ireland can be navigated.
“I have spent a significant part of my own vocation as a journalist criticising ‘the nuns’ and the Catholic Church’s once powerful hold over Irish society”, she said.
“But this is a way of life could be gone in 10 or 15 years’ time.
“This journey forced me to revise many of my own prejudices about women in religious life.
“We cannot avoid our shared history, but we do need to find ways to navigate the complicated relationships between Church and State in the future.
“Exploring the lives of ‘the nuns’ has helped me reflect on the need for those important conversations.”
The two-part series will air on January 15 and 16.
