Nano’s Letters to Paris, December 1770

In the late 1760s Nano Nagle set in train a plan to establish an Ursuline convent in Cork city. Four Irish girls went off to train in Paris, and in 1770 Nano began to build them a ‘hidden’ convent on a narrow strip of land behind her own house. The convent was most likely accessed through Nano’s front garden and up some steps. Here we share excerpts of Nano’s letters to Eleanor FitzSimons who was in Paris training for Nano’s new convent. The Ursuline sisters arrived in May 1771 and moved into their convent in September.