Sisters of Mercy Convent
15. Return to the intersection with Military Road. At the Hungry Heart Café, turn right and walk along Military Road to #170 in the religious precinct of St. John's.
Three pioneering Irish Sisters of Mercy, Sister Ursula (Clara Frayne of Dublin), Sister Francis (Mary Ann Creedon of Culowen, Cork) and Sister Rose Lynch, first came from Ireland in 1842 to establish the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy in Newfoundland. However, within six months two of the Sisters returned to Ireland, claiming poor health as the reason for their departure. Sister Francis, determined to succeed, obtained permission to stay despite letters urging her to return to Ireland.
The first convent that St. John's Bishop Fleming provided for the Sisters of Mercy had the distinction of being the first convent of the congregation established outside the British Isles.
Bishop Fleming wanted schools opened to provide educational instruction to Catholics of St. John's. Initially, the Sisters nursed the sick and poor in their homes, and set about establishing the schools Bishop Fleming sought. In 1843 the Our Lady of Mercy School opened and accepted forty-two middle and upper-class students.
Sister Francis was joined in the order early in 1843 by Sister Mary Joseph (Mary Nugent of Waterford, Ireland), a highly educated woman engaged in the translation of Italian religious texts, teaching and nursing. Tragically, in the spring of 1847, Sister Mary Joseph contracted typhus while nursing a young man off an immigrant ship from Ireland and died shortly thereafter at the age at forty-eight.
Undaunted and alone, Sister Francis Creedon was forced to close the school but continued with nursing and caring for the elderly. Joined by her niece in 1848 and a young novice from Ireland in 1850, the congregation began to flourish as more Sisters joined the community. The school reopened in 1850 and the sisters expanded their concerns to include prisoners in the jail, old people and orphans.
Sister Francis Creedon died in 1855; Sister Xavier Bernard assumed leadership and in the next thirty years established orphanages, a boarding school for girls, and a school for poor children, all in the St. John's area. By 1927 there were fifteen convents in Newfoundland with more than one hundred and twenty sisters.
The present stone building was opened in 1857. Since that time, this old building has seen many inevitable additions and changes, housing at times an orphanage, a boarding school, a school for small boys and girls, and commercial courses.
Today it houses The Gathering Place, established in 1994 by the Sisters of Mercy and the Presentation Sisters to feed those in need. As of 2023, programs have expanded, and residential units are planned for the repurposed old convent to support those seeking shelter.
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