Nuns in the midst of violence in Northern Ireland

New book of research tells the stories of religious sisters during the Troubles

For generations, nuns were the backbone of Irish life, their contributions characterised by practical, sustained and deeply valued service. While academics including Prof. Deirdre Raftery have noted the largely undocumented legacy of Catholic sisters in education, healthcare and missionary work, religious life is now located within a historical context that acknowledges difficult, painful truths associated with abuse and institutional failures.

Contemporary scholarship increasingly seeks more nuanced and comprehensive accounts of religious life that recognise both its complexities and enduring social impact. Against this backdrop, this forthcoming book broadens the historical lens to focus on the pastoral ministries of religious sisters who contributed to communities during more than three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Framed

Although the history of the Troubles is often framed in terms of politics and conflict, following the Good Friday Agreement (1998), oral history projects such as ‘Healing Through Remembering’ captured lived experiences from across the social divide. While the religious dimension of the conflict generated considerable debate, narratives tended to privilege the role of male clergy while the voices of women religious were seldom heard. Consequently, the experiences of religious sisters went unnoticed, unrecorded, and effectively undocumented.

Drawing on interviews with Catholic sisters, clergy, former political prisoners, teaching colleagues, and pupils, this book addresses this gap, offering insights into human experiences that reveal the diversity and scope of sisters’ ministries in pastoral care, education, healthcare, and peacebuilding. Oral history is frequently disparaged, yet, with limited access to convent archives, it was an invaluable means to preserve memories, provide historical insight, and help sisters make sense of their experiences by analysing not only what they said, but ‘how’ and ‘why’ these memories matter.

Despite initial hesitancy to speak out, shaped by the sensitive nature of the research and a wider culture of silence around the Troubles and the abuse scandals involving the Catholic Church, sisters ultimately revealed the everyday realities of their ministries, the challenges they faced and the complexities of living in a society at war.

Sisters created fragile spaces where hope and trust endured, and despite the challenges and realities of life in the grassroots, remained committed to breaking down enmity”

They were among women from across Northern Ireland who quietly resisted the logic of division. Witnessing life from a distinctive vantage point, they understood that peace was not only made at negotiating tables but in classrooms, hospitals and parish communities. This form of peacebuilding was local and personal, not conducted through public speeches or political platforms, but through steady, everyday actions of care and presence.

Navigating the complex moral and political terrain of conflict, sisters created fragile spaces where hope and trust endured, and despite the challenges and realities of life in the grassroots, remained committed to breaking down enmity and “fear of the other side”. As Sr Geraldine Smyth explained, it was about being present, “alongside people who were being torn apart in their communities in terms of the losses, the fallout from assassinations, bombings and also their struggles for justice. Just being alongside the people, there in Christ, where the suffering is”.

Suffering

At times, the suffering was immense and felt deeply by sisters, including Sr Marie, who described the murder of her friend’s husband as “a life-changing moment”. Recalling the hospital scene, she reflected, “It was as though nothing had happened to him, just a little white cloth over his forehead, he was all cleaned up and I remember thinking that’s what we do … we clean it up, his wife was covered in blood and here he is, as clean as a whistle”.

Extending this insight into the wider conflict, she suggested it was named ‘the Troubles’ as a form of minimisation, a way of tidying up the violence and making it more manageable. “When there was rioting, the roads were cleared almost immediately – there we go again, let’s clean it up and tidy it up. It said something to me about our psychological way of dealing with things”. This painful realisation informed her future ministry; Sr Marie later co-founded WAVE Trauma Services to support those affected by conflict-related trauma.

At times, their advocacy for social justice extended beyond Northern Ireland to mainland Britain”

Despite socio-political boundaries shaped by male power players, including politicians, certain members of the male clergy, and paramilitary groups, sisters worked closely with those on the margins and across faith traditions. They visited prisoners and supported their families, and as illustrated by the arrival of Mother Teresa in Ballymurphy in 1971, lived and served among communities that were traumatised and economically decimated.

At times, their advocacy for social justice extended beyond Northern Ireland to mainland Britain. Human rights activist Sr Sarah Clarke, who was described by former Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds as “one of the most significant and heroic women involved in the Anglo-Irish situation over the past generation”, campaigned on behalf of Irish political prisoners, including the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four, accompanied their families to prisons throughout England, and despite harassment from security forces or members of the clergy, was undeterred.

Education

For other sisters, education was an alternative to conflict, a means for pupils to alter or escape the difficult circumstances in which they lived. Schools functioned as micro-sites of peacebuilding, where, beyond academic instruction, sisters fostered dispositions of hope, forgiveness and reconciliation. Narratives reveal how their praxis frequently extended beyond the classroom, to encompass safeguarding pupils and promote inter-school ecumenical initiatives to actively disrupt the perpetuation of generational sectarianism and the militarisation of young people.

Despite their efforts, the violence and trauma of the Troubles were pervasive. In a report covering the late 1960s to 2001, a Sister of Mercy, who was principal of a girls’ school in Belfast, identified 1976 as the worst year, when three pupils were murdered during one school term by loyalist paramilitaries.

This school must remain open to show by word and example that love is the only answer. Hatred and revenge can have no place in our solution”

She described the 1980s as “a decade marked by petrol bombs and arson attacks in addition to attacks on personnel … Bullets delivered to the school, teachers under threat and advised to stagger their route to school to avoid detection”. The risk to her personal safety was considerable; having been placed on a loyalist assassination list, she required a daily police escort to and from school for approximately four months.

Concluding her report she reflected, “Despite the long difficult years there has been among all those associated with Our Lady of Mercy, a strong conviction that this school must remain open to show by word and example that love is the only answer. Hatred and revenge can have no place in our solution”.

Recognising that class division was as prevalent as religious division, individual sisters, influenced by liberation theology and its dominant principle of preferential option for the poor, opposed the selection process in Northern Ireland and sought to reduce inequality through transformative school restructuring.

Healthcare

Sisters brought a similar commitment to healthcare. Institutes such as Sisters of Bon Secours and Sisters of Mercy, who had historical links to serving the sick in the north of Ireland, were among those who responded to both immediate suffering and broader societal challenges. Hospitals were shared spaces where sisters provided impartial care, fostered solidarity, affirmed the value of life and helped build trust between communities.

However, incidents like the 1976 murder of former vice-president of Provisional Sinn Féin, Máire Drumm in the Mater Hospital, or Sr Mary Taylor’s experience of “soldiers on the corridors of the nurses’ homes … prisoners and their guards on wards, the sound of bombs exploding and gunfire”, placed nursing sisters amid the violence.

They played a vital role in fostering a sustainable peace, and their legacy is evident in the hospitals and organisations they founded and the generations of nurses they trained”

And, as community-based care expanded, sisters adapted their ministries to meet local needs. Sisters of St John of God altered their healthcare remit and opened a hospice in Newry, Good Shepherd Sr Clare O’Mahony provided healthcare for sex workers and campaigned against human trafficking, Sister of Mercy Sr Consilio Fitzgerald founded Cuan Mhuire rehabilitation centre for addiction and trauma, and OLA Sr Mary Taylor worked with people living with HIV/AIDS.

Challenged

These sisters challenged societal norms to care for those on the margins, and despite the enduring intergenerational trauma of the Troubles, they were among many who worked to repair the social fabric of life and strengthen the resilience of local communities. They played a vital role in fostering a sustainable peace, and their legacy is evident in the hospitals and organisations they founded and the generations of nurses they trained and employed.

Throughout all those years when prayer was vital, Cross and Passion sisters in Drumalis organised religious retreats, and contemplative communities such as the Poor Clares in Belfast, were a constant, prayerful presence.

Despite operating within a context shaped by competing patriarchal narratives that framed women as altruistic ‘do gooders’ and men as primary agents of peace, individual sisters became the ‘face’ of organisations or the ‘voice’ of others. Dominicans, Sr Noreen Christian, founder of Currach residential and ecumenical community, and Sr Geraldine Smyth, former director of the Irish School of Ecumenics, are among those who engaged in traditional, religious peace initiatives and cross-community collaborations, including the Opsahl Commission (1992-93).

Centres such as Corrymeela, the Christian Renewal Centre, and the Irish School of Ecumenics provided safe spaces for dialogue, where sisters contributed to the broader, peacebuilding mission of their religious institutes. Their efforts were both purposeful and constructive, overcoming resistance and limited understanding among churches unfamiliar with each other’s perspectives or traditions.

Boundaries

As Sr Geraldine explained, it was difficult to cross “the boundaries of fear and resentment” and to become “chaplains to the peace process, chaplains to communities of reconciliation”. Overtime, however, lone ministries gave way to partnerships that spanned faith traditions, crossed congregational boundaries, and involved both clergy and laity.

While these narratives offer only a small glimpse into the work of Catholic sisters during the Troubles, they expose the enduring legacies of conflict, underscore the significant role of women within the Catholic Church, and foreground an alternative, often overlooked, history of religious sisters in Ireland.

Catholic Sisters, Conflict and Peace in Northern Ireland, 1968-2008, by Briege Rafferty, is published on April 30 (Routledge, HB £155.00).