Origin Order - Foundations - Goldfields and Mid West - Perth Foundations - Bedford Park - Scarborough / Doubleview - Centenary - The Future

From this original group of women, foundations spread throughout Europe including England and Ireland.  The first known foundation of Dominican nuns in Ireland was established in Galway in 1644.  Two other foundations were eventually formed in Ireland, in Drogheda and at Sion Hill in Dublin.  It was from Sion Hill that Mother Mary Gabriel Gill led a mission to Dunedin in New Zealand in 1870 and 29 years later to the Goldfields of Western Australia after Bishop William Kelly, newly appointed Bishop of Geraldton, invited the Dominican Sisters from Dunedin to form a foundation in the recently formed Geraldton Diocese.

On 5th January 1899, Bishop Kelly provided a detailed description of their new mission and added:

“I can put before you no inducement to come here, but for the love of God.  If you can work for God’s sake and endure hard things and wait for better times, come along.  Should you think the prospects too uninviting, I will not blame you”.

The Sisters were not discouraged by the Bishop’s remarks: in March of the same year, Mother Gabriel together with Sisters di Ricci Kirby, Gonzales Wall, Dominica Murphy, Di Pazzi Miscall, Bonaventure McEntire and a postulant Kate Murphy, were named as the Western Australian founding members who arrived in Greenough, a tiny hamlet a few miles south of Geraldton on 7th June 1899 to form the first foundation of Dominican Sisters in Western Australia.

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