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Senior journalist Caitlin Kelly travelled to west Africa to track down the Irish nuns who pioneered education in the region. This article follows the journey of a single sister, Ailbe, who arrived in 1965 and dedicated her life to building schools and empowering young women in Tambacounda. As Ireland's missionary tradition evolves, these women reflect on their legacy and the future of their work.
Missionaries occupied a unique place in Ireland's national imagination. For young Irish women, religious life offered something rare: independence, education and travel. At 22 years old, Sister Ailbe, from Co Tipperary, packed her bags and embarked on a steamer to west Africa in 1965.
She remembers a 'feeling of panic, being lost and thinking: "Where am I going?
"' As the crowded train pulled into the remote town of Tambacounda in 45-degree heat, the young Irish woman stepped into her new reality. Pointing to the entrance of the town convent, she says: 'I walked through those gates and fainted.
' The heat has become bearable over the decades since her arrival, she says. Beaming, she waves to a group of young Senegalese children who pass through the gates on their way to the school and calls 'Salut' in the Tipperary accent she has retained.
'All I could think about was getting cocaine': Mothers share their stories of addiction. Ómós review: Faultless cooking already at two-star Michelin level. Get in before prices rise. Born Winifred Ryan in Upperchurch, Sr Ailbe first left home at 17 to join a French congregation called the Sisters of St Joseph of Annecy.
She was one of thousands of Irish women who left the country in the 20th century in service of the Catholic Church. Today, she is one of a small number of Irish sisters remaining in west Africa.
'I said I think God is asking this of me ... and I don't want to disappoint him, so I'll try,' she says. For young Irish women of her generation, religious life offered something rare: independence, education and travel.
'There was no question for me about going home. I was going to the missions; that's where I was going, that didn't move, that didn't get shattered at all.
' Over six decades, Ailbe and the sisters developed the area's first secondary school for girls, a primary school, a skills centre and a boarding house for girls from rural communities. This is a region where the majority continue to live below the poverty line. Sr Ailbe shows a picture of herself as a young nun working in the rural areas of Tambacounda, Senegal, with the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Annecy. Photograph: Caitlin Kelly.
Sr Ailbe visits a class of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Annecy primary school in Tambacounda. Photograph: Caitlin Kelly.
'Being a missionary to me meant you're with the people, you are out for the people ... for better or for worse ... it's like a covenant. ' Although Ireland's missionary tradition dates back centuries, the modern wave increased after independence when thousands of religious travelled to Africa, Asia and Latin America to establish schools, hospitals, clinics and churches.
Missionaries occupied a unique place in the Irish national imagination and, by the 1960s, estimates suggest about 6,000 Irish Catholic missionary personnel were working across Africa. Today, that pipeline has almost dried up, as Ireland became more secular and wealthier, and revelations of abuse eroded trust in the Church. Small numbers remain in Senegal, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Now, they pass the torch to African sisters, the continent with the fastest-growing Catholic population in the world.
In this region, Bishop Joseph Shanahan is regarded as one of the trailblazers. Arriving in Nigeria in 1902 with the Holy Ghost Fathers, he established the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary in 1928, which became a blueprint for the region. In the following three decades, the number of Nigerian Catholics jumped from 2,000 to 210,000. Many missionaries dedicated decades of their lives to expanding access to education, healthcare and learning local languages.
However, some scholars argue that in the early 20th century missionary work often operated within the structures of European colonialism and, in some cases, contributed to the suppression of local languages and spiritual traditions. Sr Ailbe watches children in the school yard.
'Being a missionary to me meant you're with the people, you are out for the people. ' Photograph: Caitlin Kelly. Sr Ailbe greets members of the congregation outside the church in Tambacounda. Photograph: Caitlin Kelly.
Dr Fiona Bateman, of the University of Galway, whose research interests include the Irish foreign missions in the 20th century, says early missionary magazines reinforced an image of Africa as a place of 'darkness and hopelessness'. She adds that campaigns such as 'a penny for the black babies' collected funds for missionary practice while perpetrating racial and colonialist stereotypes. And yet education was central to the sisters' work, Bateman adds.
'When Catholic boys grew up, they needed educated Catholic girls to marry,' she says. 'The priests couldn't educate girls, so there was a need for nuns.
Irish Missionaries Senegal Sister Ailbe Catholic Nuns Colonial History Education Tambacounda
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