A day of historical exploration! We walked the streets of Dublin, from Baggot Street where we have been based in the House of Mercy to those places where Catherine lived as a young child growing into womanhood.

Catherine as a young woman experienced many changes in situation, financially and socially. We finished our journey at Coolock where she had spent many years as the companion of Mrs Callaghan. This was clearly both a happy time, and a time of prosperity for Catherine, and on the death of the Callaghans, she inherited their wealth, which she put into the service of her dreams for a House of Mercy.

This is an incredible story really! For someone who has experienced a comfortable life, which has then been lost so that she finds herself destitute and living on the goodwill of relatives, to find herself so endowed with a fortune that she then willingly gives up to assist others!

It is inspiring, and one cannot help but be impressed and humbled at the vision of this woman. And she had vehement opposition as well.

We visited also the convent of the Presentation Sisters where she did her novitiate, not as a young woman, but as a mature woman, keen to ensure that her vision would prosper after her.