Nationality: Irish
Congregational Register No: 04
D.O.B. 15.02.1907
First Profession: 15.12.1937
Died: 01.11.1969 Aged: 62 years

Mary Moynagh from Legwee, Co. Cavan, joined Marie Martin and her two other companions in Glenstal on 16 August 1935. She was truly a founding member of the congregation. It was her brother, Bishop James Moynagh, then apostolic administrator in Calabar, Nigeria, who opened the way for the foundation of MMM by his invitation to Marie in 1935 to come to Nigeria.

Sr. M. Joseph fulfilled many roles in those early days, as a pioneer in Nigeria, Angola, and in Clonmel and  Drogheda, Ireland, where for two years she was novice mistress and superior.

Following her time in Drogheda, she was assigned as the superior of missions in Calabar and Ogoja, Nigeria, until 1952, when she became superior of the founding group in Angola.

In 1959 she was appointed fourth general councillor to Mother Mary.

She somehow always preserved her warm humanness, despite the stresses and strains of those founding days.

She was kind, with a big heart, generous almost to a fault, and appeared to be in constant communication with God. Many remember her continuous recitation: “Mary, mother of God pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” Also remembered was the dread that as superior, she might come to the first dinner sitting in Drogheda, because with the generous helpings she served, inevitably there would be a shortage for the second sitting!

Sr. M. Joseph died in Bettystown in 1969 and is buried in the MMM plot in Drogheda, next to Mother Mary Martin.