Sous-fonds DIN/25 - Dingle Convent Papers

St. Joseph’s Presentation Convent, Dingle was founded on 21 October 1829. Dr. Egan, Bishop of Kerry requested that the Sisters come to Dingle.
On 20 October 1829, Mother Agnes Lonergan Sister Teresa Fitzharris, and Sisters Francis Dunne from the convent at Tralee began their work among the Irish-speaking population of Dingle. It was the third Presentation convent in Kerry. Enclosure was established and Rev. Mother Agnes was appointed Superioress – an Office which she had held in Tralee.
They established the convent in the Parish Priest’s house, which had been used as a school for poor children. Within days of arriving the nuns started to collect money for a school. In the mean-time classes were held in the convent parlour and Church gallery. The new school was opened in 1832 with 150 pupils.
Within living- memory the Catholic religion had been illegal. On Sundays, the nuns gave adult instruction in the Parish Church. In 1832, 1,000 were confirmed. By 1836 the number had grown to 1,500. In 1834/1835 a new wing was added to the small convent – with cells, a community room and Chapel. By this time there were six postulants in the Dingle Convent.
From the very beginning conditions were tough in the new foundation. The earliest convent
Annals regularly mention the famine.

In 1851 the area was again struck by famine and the proselytisers were again active. To
help relieve suffering the nuns built an industrial school for girls, aimed at providing both
education and employment. At one stage more than seven hundred girls were working in
school producing knitting, weaving and lace.
In 1861 the nuns gave part of their land to build the new parish church. From 1866, the
schools were in a bad state and were a health hazard for the nuns and the children.
A bequest enabled the building of a new school which opened at the end of 1872 with 450
pupils.
The interest from the 1860s bequest funded the establishment of an orphanage for “poor
female orphans”. Miss Clarissa Hussey, a benefactress of schools for some years died in
1864 and left a legacy to the convent.
In 1874, 46 poor children got breakfast every morning. In 1860, Dingle
had a further famine. Funds from the Bishop, the National Land League and the Mansion
House Relief Fund enabled 134 children to get breakfast every morning.

Work commenced on a new Convent, the present structure, in March 1877. Mother Agnes Hayes, born in Green Street, Dingle, had an innate knowledge of architecture and building and it is to her and her sister Mother Gertrude Hayes that we owe the impressive Convent building that is now An Díseart. Improvements in the Convent were ongoing over a period of forty years under the direction of succeeding leaders in the house, as funds became available. The Sister responsible for the Harry Clarke commission Mother Ita Macken, a Dublin woman entered the convent in 1887. Having steered her community through the difficult post-war years and overseen far sighted improvements to the buildings, she was called on in 1927 to become the first mother general of the Congregation in the Diocese of Kerry. She was a born leader, a visionary, whose mind ranged into the future.

Just as the introduction of free education was a watershed event for pupils and schools, so also was the decision by Sisters to become involved in other ministries. Despite this diversification the Presentation congregation among many others experienced a steady drop in numbers and by the mid -1980s it had become necessary to make important decisions on apostolate, community structures and to rationalize buildings. Unique among the solutions adopted here, was the decision to lease the Convent and grounds for the development of An Díseart.