Carmel Hartnett & Maeve O’Sullivan: Nano Nagle, Bill Parfrey, Presentation Sisters, South Pres, South Presentation Convent,

Carmel Hartnett & Maeve O’Sullivan: Nano Nagle, Bill Parfrey, Presentation Sisters, South Pres, South Presentation Convent,

Cork's Built Heritage, The Presentation Sisters.

A group of religious sisters talk about Nano Nagle, her life and work and miracles attributed to praying to her. They talk about the modern schooling needs of the area, and the role of the South Presentation building.

Note: This interview was conducted for the DVD If the Walls Could Talk.

22 October 2013

CFP_SR00499_HartnettOsullivan_2013

Cork City; Ireland; Built Heritage; 1770s-200Os;

If the Wall Could Talk: Stories Of Cork's Heritage Catalogue Numbers: 

CFP_SR00492_herlihy_2013;
CFP_SR00493_walsh_2013;
CFP_SR00494_butler_2013;
CFP_SR00495_faris_2013;
CFP_SR00496_osullivan_2013;
CFP_SR00497_ryan_2013;
CFP_SR00498_holland_2013;
CFP_SR00500_mccarthy_2013;
CFP_SR00505_healy_2013;
CFP_SR00506_gleeson_2013;
CFP_SR00507_miller_2013;

Published Material:
If the Wall Could Talk: Stories Of Cork's Heritage (2013) DVD

If the Stones Could Speak: More stories from Cork's heritage (2015) DVD

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

Cork Folklore Project

English

Sound

1 .wav File

16m 57s

Presentation Centre, Evergreen Street, Cork, Ireland.

MiniDisc

Audio/Wav 48kHz/24bit

16bit / 44.1kHz

The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com

MW Well I tell you what, will we start with -- just like we’re here in the Heritage Room which is a lovely room. Could you tell me just a little bit about the heritage room or if there’s anything about the Heritage Room maybe, Carmel, if you wanted to start?
CH Yeah, well this room now was [sound of mic being moved] eh always having artefacts especially about the life of Nano Nagle eh who was a wonderful woman from around Mallow, from Killavullen, who started teaching the poor in Cork in around 1750 and spent thirty years walking the streets also visiting all the people who were sick and poor in their homes and visiting the prisons. But she wanted to educate the poor children, the -- especially the Catholics who had no opportunity of going to school, so she rented little thatched houses. And the first school had thirty pupils, she sent her maid out to gather thirty girls and taught them reading by teaching them the Catechism and then taught them to work. Em gradually the number of schools increased, she had five for girls and two for boys in the city for thirty years and she just walked around and paid her s- teachers herself. She had inherited money from her family but also she had a famous uncle, Joseph Nagle, who was a lawyer, a Catholic lawyer, em who never married, so when he died in 1755 he left her a lot of money. She was thinking at the age of 57 that maybe -- how was the work going to continue if anything happened to her, so she was looking for sisters who would run the schools. So she actually brought the Ursuline Sisters to Cork and they lived in this very building for fifty years. After fifty years they moved out to Blackrock, and this property became the property of the Presentation Sisters. They had added buildings. Nano had built us a three-storey house for them which is the centre of this building. But they had begun having boarders and they had added this whole wing here facing the garden. Em -- okay.