Subfonds IEOLA/IEOLA/03 - Convents and Foundations

The Congregation of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA) was founded in Lyon in 1876 by Father Augustine Planque and immediately began to recruit girls in Ireland. The Irish Sisters would eventually settle in Ardfoyle Convent in Ballintemple, Cork from 1913 onward and became their own OLA Province on the 25th of November 1930. The Irish Province was initially comprised the OLA houses in Ireland, the Vicariate of Benin, and the Vicariate of Niger, with the latter of these two now being present day Nigeria. Sometime between 1930 and 1938 the OLA communities in the Gold Coast, now modern day Ghana, were included in the Irish Province. In 1950 the Irish Province began assuming responsibility of the French Generalate’s convents and foundations in England starting with their house in London, followed soon after by their property in Lancaster in 1953. For three years from 1949-1952 the Irish OLA had a foundation in Niger where they were involved in primary school education, and in 1957 the Irish Sisters began a new foundation in the United States.

In addition to setting up their own foundations, the Irish Province also assisted in the work of other OLA communities abroad in Egypt, Algeria, France and Argentina. And in 1974 the Irish Province sent their own sisters to help staff hospitals in Kenya and Zambia. In the 1990’s the original foundations in Nigeria and Ghana became self-sufficient and independent OLA provinces of their own, and so, the Irish Province opened a new frontier in Tanzania in 1991, and also sent Sisters to South Sudan to aid refugees where they remained until 1997. In 2024 the Irish Province became an OLA District alongside Tanzania with both Districts being independent.