100 year-old Leitrim nun passes away

100 year-old Leitrim nun passes away

19 February 2020

A LEITRIM nun who celebrated her 100th birthday before Christmas has died at her South African convent on St Valentine’s Day. 

Sr Mary Bartholomew, who left home in 1940 to care for what she described as “the poorest of the poor” amid the soaring heat of the East Cape of South Africa, received a timely visit from her Irish nieces to help her mark her birthday in December. 

Born Philomena Cunningham, she and her older sister, Mary Bernadette, were among the first girls to be taught at the Sacred Heart Grammar School in Newry. 

They were also among the first girls to play camogie for Leitrim Fontenoys GAA Club, before an official team had been set up. 

St Bartholomew left her Kilnhill Road home to begin her novitiate and entered the Assumption Convent in Ballynahinch in 1938, just two years before she departed for South Africa on a passenger ship, the Warwick Castle. 

After taking her final vows in 1942, she spent decades teaching and on her retirement was assigned to open a clinic and pre-school for over 16,000 refugees fleeing the horrors of the Mozambique war. 

In Sr Bartholomew’s own words recorded in a book written over 20 years ago, Drumgooland – A Parish Divided, she recalled: “With missionary zeal we did our utmost over the following years to render whatever assistance we could to the many thousands of refugees, I taught including adults. 

“These poor people had a minimum of education and were eager to learn English. After class we would sit around and read the bible in Shangaan – the local language, and gave help when it was needed.”

Requiem Mass for Sr Bartholomew will be celebrated in the Church of St Bernadette, Port Elizabeth, on Friday.