Brigidine Sisters

The Brigidine Sisters (also known as the Brigidine Order, or simply the Brigidines) are a global Roman Catholic congregation, founded by Bishop Daniel Delany in Ireland on February 1st, 1807. There were six founding members of the order, all of whom were originally catechists: Eleanor Tallon, Margaret Kinsella, Eleanor Dawson, Judith Whelan, Bridget Brien and Catherine Doyle.

The mission of the Brigidines is the education and evangelisation of youth. An earlier congregation linked to Saint Brigid had been founded in the fifth century AD, and had lasted until the Reformation; Bishop Delany considered the establishment of this new congregation to be merely a refounding of the original one. In order to demonstrate this continuity, he brought an oak sapling with him from Kildare and planted it in the grounds of the new convent in Tullow, Co. Carlow.

In 1809, he sent three of the sisters from Tullow to Mountrath in Co. Laois, where they founded a convent and school which survives to this day. In 1842, another house was established in Abbeyleix, also in Co. Laois. Then, in 1858 a layman in Goresbridge offered to help finance a foundation in his parish. The Paulstown and Ballyroan foundations soon followed.

In 1883, in answer to a request from a bishop in New South Wales, six sisters from Mountrath went to Australia. They founded their first establishment in Coonamble, New South Wales. From there branches quickly spread to the dioceses of Sydney, Bathurst, Canberra Goulburn, Perth and Brisbane as well as to the diocese of Wellington, New Zealand, in 1898.

The Brigidine motto is "Fortiter et Suaviter", which is Latin for "Strength and Gentleness".