Sr. Helena, who came from Newport, Co. Tipperary, was born on 15 November 1921. She was educated at the local Mercy Secondary School and joined MMM in 1943, when the Congregation was only five years founded. Around the time of her first profession of vows Mother Mary Martin was receiving many requests to expand our missionary work beyond Nigeria, where all the early foundations were made.
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.
Nationality: Irish
Congregational Register No: 185
D.O.B. 25.09.1919
First Profession: 08.09.1950
Died: 04.12.1993 Aged: 74 years
Eileen, from Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, entered MMM on 15 September1947.
Because she was already a qualified nurse, she was missioned to Nigeria shortly after profession. She gave a lifetime of service in Afikpo, Abakaliki, Ogoja, Ikom, Nkalagu, Minna, and for many years in Obudu. In Obudu she started a centre for the blind in the Hansen’s disease (leprosy) settlement there.
Sr. Martina was born Bridget Ita Moriarty in Dingle, Co. Kerry in 1927, part of a family of six boys and four girls. She trained as a pharmacist at the College of Pharmacy in Dublin, qualifying in 1946. Before joining MMM in 1963 she worked as an assistant pharmacist in many towns in Ireland. She worked with her good friend Eileen Campion, also a pharmacist, and who also joined MMM in October 1963, becoming Sr. Aengus.
After profession Sr. Martina worked in the pharmacy in Drogheda for three years. She was assigned to Nigeria in 1969 and worked first in Abakaliki for four years. She then moved to Afikpo, where she spent four years as a pharmacist and also served in local MMM leadership. In 1977 she was assigned to Eleta, Ibadan, where she was to minister for the next twenty-three years. While working in the hospital she lived in the novitiate community, which was across the road.
Nationality: British
Congregational Register No: 576
D.O.B. 21.08.1942
First Profession: 03.05.1963
Died: 29.03.1996 Aged: 54 years
From Jersey in the Channel Islands, Marie entered MMM on 3 October 1960.
She qualified as a laboratory technician and worked in the laboratory in the hospital in Drogheda until 1971, when she was assigned to Leon, Spain.
Nationality: Irish
Congregational Register No. 153
D.O.B. 22.07.1924
First Profession: 09.09.1948
Died: 28.05.2004 Aged: 79 years
Anne (Nance) Moran was born and raised in Terenure, Dublin. She was the sixth child in a family of five brothers and three sisters. Anne was only five years old when her mother died shortly after her younger sister, Berna, was born. Their father died only two years after their mother, and the family was raised by the eldest girl, Molly, who became mother to all, never marrying. Anne was educated at the Presentation College, Terenure, and Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham, later going on to Skerry’s Commercial College, where she learned her secretarial skills. Anne entered MMM in December 1945, taking the name Sr. Mary Reparatrice.
Sister Ita was born in Ballinasloe, Galway in 1930. The youngest of four children, three girls and a boy, she obtained her early education at the Mercy Convent, Ballinasloe. She trained in typing, shorthand and book-keeping and worked in the office of Dubarry Shoes in Ballinasloe.
She worked as a secretary before joining the Medical Missionaries of Mary in 1949. After a devastating fire in Drogheda in 1952, novices were housed in a hotel in Termonfeckin, a nearby town. Ita’s group was the first to be professed after the fire.
Sister Therese Kilkenny wrote: ‘Ita with her group made their First Profession in Termonfeckin Parish Church because it was very soon after the fire and we were all in temporary accommodation in what is now An Grianan.
Nationality: Irish
Congregational Register No: 777
D.O.B. 15.11.1917
First Profession: 27.04.1970
Died: 06.11.1979 Aged: 61 years
Mary Josephine Meenan, née McDonagh, from Belfast, entered on 8 September 1967.
She was a widow with no family. She had not married until she was nearly forty and her husband, John, had died after only nine years of marriage.
Sr. Leonie was born Patricia McSweeney in County Waterford in 1932. She grew up in Dublin, together with her brother Bill, and attended her early education with the Holy Faith Sisters, whom she loved. She worked as a secretary in a factory for two years before joining MMM in 1951. She felt a call to religious life but was more attracted to nursing than to teaching. When she was interviewed by Mother Mary, Mother accepted her immediately and told her that she would like her to study to be a doctor.
Nationality: Scottish
Congregational Register No: 437
D.O.B. 14.04.1914
First Profession: 06.05.1959
Died: 01.02.1981 Aged: 66 years
Catherine Spellacy McMeekin, known to us as Sr. Michaeli, entered in Clonmel on 7 October 1956. She hailed from Airdrie in Scotland and was a true Scotswoman to the end!
St. Benedict’s Rule reads:
