Our 'kitchen sister' carved a very nice pumpkin head and, as you can see from the photos below, we had a lot of fun with it. But because today (November 1st) is the Feast of All Saints, I was also thinking about what Vatican II speaks of as, "the universal call to holiness". This feast is a reminder that we are all destined to become Saints, to share in the divine life of the Trinity.

On the 7th October our community rejoiced and celebrated with Sr Maria Breidge as she made her first Profession as a Dominican Nun. Due to Covid 19 restrictions her family and friends from County Donegal were unable to be with us and many of our Dominican brethren and sisters – who would normally join us – could not be present. Fr Gerard Dunne, vicar of the Master of the Order for our monastery, officiated at the ceremony, assisted by Fr Paul Clayton-Lea, our good and loyal friend from the diocese.

This is the time of the year when we are usually planning our Vocation Weekends for the Autumn/Winter. Unfortunately due to COVID-19 we are unable to host any Vocation Discernment Weekends for the present. If, however, you are interested in exploring more about our way of life we would be happy to answer your questions or accompany you via (Zoom etc). Depending of the level of interest we could organize a virtual Vocation Weekend with Conferences (Questions and Answers) via Zoom (or Googlemeet).

We are raffling this lovely hand-knit 'Noah's Ark Set' as part of our ongoing fundraising efforts in respect of our Funding Appeal to recover the costs incurred in replacing the Monastery Roof (in 2019) and necessary work on our heating system (including replacing the 230kw central heating boiler in 2020).

The raffle tickets are €5 each and the draw will be held on the Feast of Christ the King (22nd November; in time to make a nice Christmas present for someone).

Those of you who admired our art and crafts display on the 15th of August will be pleased to know that most of those items are now available for sale through our online shop. We have kept some of the items to use as gifts etc. If, however, there is something that you particularly wanted and you can't see it in our shop, please don't hesitate to contact us and we will try to facilitate you.

As some of you may be aware by now, as part of our celebration of the Feast of the Assumption we have our annual 'art & craft display', where we all get to see and admire what our sisters have been working on over the past year. Enjoy the pics😊

We share with you the good news that Sr Maria Breidge has been accepted by our community to make her first Profession. The following is a reflection by our prioress, Sr Mairéad, for the occasion. References to the Scripture Readings are for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A.

Check out our new look website, complete with Online Shop!
All our own work – both the website and the products in the Shop.

In late February we discovered a Website creation software programme (Incomedia Website X5 Evo) that seemed to be just what we needed to work on our website. We had for some time thought that we needed to ‘freshen-up’ our website (and we wanted to add an Online Shop) so this seemed ‘God-sent’.

To mark Vocations' Sunday, you might like this Vocation Story from the oldest sister in our monastery.

God speaks in many and varied ways. I knew at the age of 12 or 13 that someday, sometime I would be a nun and give my life to Him. It was 6 years later that I thought about it again. ...

We share with you some photos taken after Melanie our postulant received the habit on the Eve of Epiphany – she is now Sr Léonie Marie. She is pictured here with Sr Maria Breidge (our other novice) and some community sisters.

We started the month by hosting the AGM of the ‘Associated Monasteries of Ireland’ (representing those Orders that have only one monastery in Ireland, such as ourselves). The topic for this year’s meeting was ‘Interculturality in Monastic Communities’ by Sr Chinyeaka C. Ezeani MSHR. Her interesting and helpful presentation was much appreciated, given the growing diversity of our Communities.

July was a very busy month for the Dominican Order around the world and for our own Monastery. Luckily we began the month with our ‘Community Holidays’ – a week for relaxation and renewal together, with less work so that we have more time to spend together.


The first and most important news! We have a new Master of the Order of Preachers: Fr. Gerard Francisco Parco Timoner III, O.P., a son of the Dominican Province of the Philippines and first Asian Master of the Order, was elected on July the 13th 2019, becoming the 87th successor of St. Dominic de Guzman.

On St Patrick’s Day we usually have a little Celebration/Concert in the afternoon. This year one of our Sisters recited this poem (her own composition), which we would like to share with you.