Brief History

In 1827, on the feast of Our Lady of Mercy, Catherine McAuley opened the first House of Mercy in Baggot St. Dublin, as a place of safety and refuge, for poor women.

Mother Frances Warde, who was one of the first Sisters of Mercy, wrote of Catherine that:  “She was a woman of God and God made her a woman of vision”.

Since then, throughout the world, thousands of young women (and more recently, young men) have been educated in Mercy schools (now under the patronage of CEIST), the sick have been cared for in Mercy hospitals and the poor have been cared for by Mercy sisters.