Catherine McAuley-Woman of Mercy

On 24 September 1827 Catherine McAuley opened the House of Mercy on Baggot Street. The trustees of the Sancta Maria, the Sisters of Mercy, derive their origin and their on-going mission from this event. Catherine McAuley was a Dublin woman who saw the needs of her times:

• Education for the poor children of Dublin
• Support for unprotected, unemployed, vulnerable woman.

She had the initiative and resourcefulness to do something about the needs she saw. She spent her inheritance on building the House of Mercy on Baggot Street to address these needs. She researched the best methods of education in the early 19th century by travelling to France and skilling the women who gathered around her to help with the work.
While socio-economic circumstances’s of women and State provision of services have changed, her values guided the opening of Sancta Maria College in 1960 and still guide us today:

• Education is important
• Compassion for vulnerable people is important.

We aim to keep these values alive in our school community.