Meet Ireland’s youngest nuns: ‘I was seeing a lovely guy with a motorbike. I asked him if he’d ever been dumped for this reason before’

While the number of nuns in Ireland has halved over the past two decades, there are still new recruits signing up for a life dedicated to their faith. From giving up meat and mobile phones to sacrificing motherhood and careers, we talk to them about life in an enclosed order

Sr Beatrice Brady and Sr Laura Cullen. Photo: Patrick Browne

Sarah MacDonald

It is gently misting rain as I travel the winding road from Lismore in Co Waterford, with its imposing castle, on towards St Mary’s Abbey, Glencairn. The monastery’s discreet entrance gates could easily be missed. A one-kilometre avenue leading to St Mary’s is flanked on each side by large swathes of lush farmland. In such a bucolic setting, it seemed indecent to do anything over 5kmh — a preparation for the otherworldly pace of life inside the walls of the only Cistercian monastery for women in Ireland. The enclosed order was founded in 1098 and follows a strict code of monastic life.  

The warmth of the nun who greets me in a bright, airy and thoroughly modern reception area is matched by the ebullience of the two young nuns I am here to interview: 28-year-old Sr Beatrice Brady and 31-year-old Sr Laura Cullen. They are the youngest members of the community of 26 nuns. Sr Beatrice professed her first vows in 2021 while Sr Laura is a novice — a nun in training — so she does not wear the distinctive Cistercian colours of a white habit, black veil and black scapular, but an all-white habit and matching white veil.