Mother Mary Teresa Kavanagh

Mother Mary Teresa of the Holy Ghost was born in New Ross on 29th June 1769.

Her father and brother were local medical doctors.

The Kavanagh home was at Ringwood , The Rower. Co. Kilkenny and their medical practice

was located a few miles away at No. 2 John Street, New Ross. Co. Wexford.

In 1775, during the period of the Penal Laws, Dr. George Kavanagh and his son became Protestants in order to save their property.

Dr. Kavanagh’s daughter became a Teresian Sister at Ranelagh in reparation for the defection of her father and brother. Sister Mary Teresa was professed a Carmelite Nun in Ranelagh on 22nd April 1791 aged 22 years.

In her early religious life whe had first-hand experience of he persecution of the Penal Laws, when in 1804 the members of her community were driven from their convent, deprived of their religious habit, and compelled to rent a house in Arran Quay ( Dublin) where they lived as seculars before being allowed to return to their cloister. Mother Kavanagh was Mother Prioress when the convent was built in Ranelagh in 1805.

For many years Mother Kavanagh had nurtured hopes to found a monastery in her native town as reparation for the defection of her father and brother from the Roman Catholic Church. Coincidentally it was through another family relative that her prayers were answered.

In 1816 her prayers were heard when her sisters’ brother in law , Dean Chapman , Parish Priest of New Ross , applied to Ranelagh Carmel for a group who would undertake the running of a school for the education of poor children in his parish. It is most likely that the family connection prompted Dean Chapman to make this request to Ranelagh Carmel. The Mother Prioress agreed ,if matters could be arranged ,to place a small community of her sisters at Dean Chapman’s service.

Thus, Mother Kavanagh returned to New Ross as Foundress and First Prioress of Mound Carmel Monastery on 18th July 1817, aged 48 years.

Mother Kavanagh was Prioress for 18 years and guided the destinies of her foundation with singular tact and prudence through all the early vicissitudes and struggles in trying times. Irish Catholics still lay crushed under oppression and restrictions of the Penal Laws, as Catholic Emancipation was not granted for more than a decade after the arrival of the Carmelites to New Ross.

Mother Kavanagh died on 18th May 1843