The saviour of Foxford

Agnes Morrogh-Bernard, Foundress of Foxford Woollen Mills

by Margaret Molloy

foreword by Mary Robinson (Mercier Press, €14.99).

J. Anthony Gaughan

This is an interesting biography of Agnes Morrogh-Bernard (Mother Mary Arsenius), a most remarkable member of the Irish Sisters of Charity. She inherited her hyphenated name from her father. John Morrogh came from a prominent Catholic family in Glanmire, Co. Cork, and, on inheriting the Bernard estates near Killarney, he became known as John Morrogh-Bernard.

Agnes herself was born in Cheltenham in England on February 24, 1842. By 1849 the family was settled in the Bernard estate in Kerry and Agnes was educated in Laurel Hill Convent in Limerick and in a finishing school in Paris.

Kerry had been ravaged by the famine of the previous years. Hunger and starvation still stalked the land. As a young girl Agnes witnessed a starving woman begging for some of the mash of nettles prepared for the turkeys at the back door of her home. 

As she later recalled it had a cathartic effect on her and thereafter she resolved to be a nun and spend her life in the service of the poor.

It took Agnes some time to overcome her father’s opposition to her determination to enter the convent. 

When he relented she began her novitiate at Harold’s Cross in Dublin in 1863 and was professed three years later. After a few years she was appointed headmistress of the King’s Inn Street School, where she had charge of 1,200 pupils.

Later, she was attached to the Magdalene Home in Donnybrook, Mountjoy Street Convent and the Lakelands orphanage.

In 1877 she was appointed rectress of the convent in Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon. Her time there was an indication of what she would achieve later in Foxford. 

She established a national school which provided meals, and later an industrial school with places for up to 75 girls. 

She also established a laundry, pharmacy, bakery, and lending library. She promoted spinning and weaving skills in the district.

Impressed by these initiatives, Bishop John Lyster invited Agnes to open a convent in Foxford. In 1891 she established a school attached to the convent which provided food and clothing to the pupils. 

Poverty

To alleviate the desperate poverty of the district she decided to establish a woollen mill.

Among those who helped her to succeed in this venture three men loomed large. 

John Charles Smith of Caledon Mills, Co. Tyrone, helped her with the construction of the mill and through the good offices of Sir Horace Plunkett and Fr Tom Finlay, SJ, she acquired a loan and substantial grant from the Congested Districts Board and other monies. 

Apart from the mill, Agnes and the other sisters helped the people to improve their living conditions and provided community education in horticulture and diet.

The author tracks the success story of the Foxford Woollen Mill from its beginning to the present. Within a few years of its establishment in 1892, it was employing more than a 100 people. 

In 1905, 105 were employed and its products were on sale at outlets nationwide, including Arnott’s, Switzer’s and Brown Thomas in Dublin.

By 1942 it was employing 220 master craftspeople. Nowadays its products are on sale in Foxford’s stores in Ireland and in other stores all over the world.

This is a well-researched account of Agnes Morrogh-Bernard and Foxford Woollen Mills with which she will always be associated. It is, however, regrettable that the author’s very frequent use of long unabridged quotations gives it the appearance of a ‘cut and paste’ product. 

Also the book could be improved with the addition of an index, but that is true of many books today.