Celebrating 150 years

Loreto in Australia

I suppose no one will ever know what it cost me to leave Ireland and my many Irish friends... I felt I had to do it, or be unfaithful to grace. Mother Gonzaga Barry

This year we celebrate 150 years since Mother Gonzaga Barry and her nine companions bravely set sail from Ireland in 1875, to journey halfway across the world, with the mission of setting up schools for girls in Australia.

In 1874, the newly appointed Bishop of Ballarat, Michael O'Connor, invited the Loreto sisters in Ireland to establish a school for Catholic girls in his new diocese. In light of this, Mother Gonzaga Barry was asked if she would undertake this mission. Mother Gonzaga and her companions arrived in Melbourne on 19 July 1875 and proceeded directly to Ballarat to begin a school for girls. Loreto Convent Mary's Mount (now Loreto College Ballarat) was founded in that first year as well as Loreto Dawson St, a day school for girls.

'Being faithful to grace'

More than 25 years later, when writing about her experience of coming to Australia, Mother Gonzaga Barry wrote: "I suppose no one will ever know what it cost me to leave Ireland and my many Irish friends. It nearly broke my heart, though I was told by Superiors that I would not be sent against my will, I felt I had to do it, or be unfaithful to grace; and when Reverend Mother told me that if I had not consented to go, she would not have allowed any of the Sisters to go to Ballarat, I felt grateful to God who gave me strength, and surely He has made up a hundredfold since for any little sacrifice I may have made for Him."

The concept of 'being faithful to grace' has become the centrepiece of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Loreto in Australia.

Celebrating ten humble, courageous and resilient women

Led by the diminutive and hard-of-hearing Mother Gonzaga Barry, ten Loreto Sisters, ranging in age from 18 to 55, left Ireland 150 years ago to embark on a journey to a country they knew very little about. Their lives were turned upside down as they left their homeland and found a place amongst gold fever, vast landscapes and endless possibilities of Ballarat in 1875.

These courageous women gave the rest of their lives in the service of Catholic education in Australia: Mary Aloysius Macken, Anna Berchmans Stafford, Antonia Boniface Völcher, Ellen Bruno McCabe, Catherine Dorothea Frizelle, Mary Gertrude Quinn, Mary Gonzaga Barry, Margaret Joseph O'Brien, Helen Margaret Mary Hughes, and Bridget Xavier(a) Yourelle.

P0019 Corridor Classroom and Museum Mary's Mount 1899 TIFF (1)-Edit-Edit.jpg

A Travelling Exhibition to celebrate this milestone

In early May 2025, Loreto Kirribilli will be hosting the Being Faithful to Grace Travelling Exhibition, a creative collaboration of all Loreto schools in Australia, celebrating in colour, word, music and poetry the stories of past and present. Each school has created a patterned skirt for three-metre-tall mannequins that will form the centrepiece of the exhibiton. Drama students will perform in a live production, A Serious Business, which explores the writings of Mother Gonzaga. The exhibition will then travel to Loreto Normanhurst and then to the other Loreto schools around Australia, celebrating the living tradition of Loreto in Australia and South East Asia.