The Palliser Family

Rathfarnham house was built in the year 1725 by William Palliser. The Palliser family were originally from Yorkshire but settled in Wexford towards the end of the 17th Century.

Sir William Palliser was the inventor of concentric tubing for guns and of the chilled shot known as the “Palliser Shot”.

Richard Barry Palliser was married to the sister of Captain Marryat, the novelist.

The Archbishop Rev. William Palliser was his father and he was a man of considerable wealth and extensive learning. His name is remembered by his bequest to the library of Trinity College Dublin- “Bibliotheca Palliserina”.

William Palliser was interested in scientific pursuits and literary work. His wife, Miss Holmes, was niece to Alderman Howe, and had a fortune of £20,000. The house was then known as “The Palliser Mansion”. It’s said that the Palliser family entertained widely and had many famous visitors to the house. These included Handel, the composer, Thomas Moore, the poet and Jonathan Swift, Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and author of “Gulliver's Travels”.

William died in 1768 without an heir to take over the house, so it passed to his cousin, the Rev. John Palliser.

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The Grierson Family

In the 1790’s the house was purchased by George Grierson, the King’s printer in Ireland. It is believed that he had an income that exceeded £12,000 per annum. The family were known to have owned a number of stately homes in the Dublin foothills including Mount Venus, Woodtown House and a hunting lodge in Ballynascorney. After he was made ‘redundant’ after the Act of Union and granted a compensation of £100,000, he left Rathfarnham House and went to Woodtown House and tended to his farms. His sons were not good with money, and they eventually lost the house.

Rathfarnham house fell into disrepair. And it was in this bad condition that Archbishop Murray bought it.

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Archbishop Murray                                                                           Teresa Ball

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Archbishop Murray was born on 18 April 1768 at Sheepwalk, near Arklow, Co. Wicklow. He was the son of Thomas and Judith Murray. His parents were farmers.  When he was eight years old, he went to Thomas Betagh's School at Saul's Court, near Christchurch Cathedral. When he was sixteen years old, Archbishop John Carpenter sent him to the Irish college at Salamanca in Spain, finishing his studies at the University of Salamanca. He was made a priest in 1792 when he was twenty-four years old. After a couple of years as a parish priest at St. Paul’s Church in Dublin, he moved to Arklow. As a preacher, Murray is said to have been particularly effective, especially in appeals for charitable causes, such as the schools.

The archbishop of Dublin wanted to expand educational facilities for Catholic girls by the early 1810s.

In 1814 Frances Ball entered the convent in York and at the request of Dr Murray she was prepared for the work of establishing the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ireland. Frances was the youngest daughter of a wealthy silk merchant from Eccles Street in Dublin.  She was destined for the religious life and followed the advice of her sister “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His Justice and all else will be added to you”. She took the religious name of Teresa in 1814 and pronounced vows on September 1816. More information here

Loreto House

 

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    Sister Mary Augustine known to the world as Mrs Mary Aikenhead                                                                            Mother Teresa Ball

 

Dr Murray purchased Rathfarnham House and forty acres of land for £2,000 in 1821.

The house was in such bad condition that the three nuns, Sister Teresa, Mother Baptist Therry and Mother Ignatia Arthur, couldn’t move in straight away. So Mrs. Aikenhead, who was the Superior - General of the Sisters of Charity, offered them to move in with her. It was a very kind offer. They lived in her house for nine months. After they moved out, they took a house at Harold's Cross, which was enough to accommodate twelve pensioners (Annals of Loreto House). During the repair, Mother Teresa added an extra storey to the house importing dutch bricks so that the new work would match the older building. Sister Teresa had become Mother as she was head of the order.

                 Mother Teresa renamed the building ‘Loreto House’ and eventually the community became known as the Loreto Sisters. This is because the arrival of the three sisters reminded Mother Teresa of the Holy Family. The Holy House from Nazareth was reputed to have been miraculously carried by angels from the Holy Land to Loreto in Italy on December 10th, 1294. It was to be preserved from attack during the crusades and many doubters would be surprised to hear about the cuttings on stones and inscriptions on the house that tie it to its origins.

Mother Teresa had a great wish to build an amazing church on the grounds. She had no money until a very rich postulant entered in 1836 to realise this dream. On June 16th, 1838 Archbishop Murray laid foundation stones  and Father O’Rourke said the first Holy Mass.  He was a Carmelite Priest. The principal architect was Patrick Byrne but the famous English architect Augustus Welby Pugin collaborated the design. The church was completed in 1846 and Archbishop Murray dedicated it to the Sacred Heart. Information on the sculptures here.

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Picture: Loreto Abbey

Source: Williams, Joe. Loreto Abbey Rathfarnham. Digital image. South Dublin Libraries. Web. 2 Nov. 2016.

 

Legacy of Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa died on 22nd May 1861 and she was laid to rest in a vault in the chapel at Loreto Abbey. However, her building plans continued after her death. In 1863, the novitiate was added followed by the Concert Hall and Reflectory in 1869. St. Anthony's wing and the Francis Xavier wing were built in 1896 and 1903 respectively.

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Life was busy in Loreto Abbey and there is more history of the boarding school to be found in this section. The school doors eventually closed in 1999 and the property was sold to a developer named Liam Carroll. He built and sold 10 blocks of apartments on the property, further plans were halted by the recession and The Abbey fell into the hands of NAMA. Loreto Abbey lay derelict for 15 years before being purchased in 2014 by the Department of Education. In 2015 the Abbey reopened as Gaelcholáiste an Phiarsaigh, an all-Irish secondary school. More information on the sale here.

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