StPatrick’sbabies home, Stamullen
Mr. Dunne, who was in charge of. the Sales Department, is joining the Abbey Clothing Company as representative of Louth, Meath Monaghan, Cavan and North of the Liffey in Dublin.
He will continue to reside in Drogheda, where he has innumerable friends, and they, no doubt, join with us in extending to him best wishes for success in his new appointment.
Just a stone’s throw from St. Patrick’s Church in Stamullen, is St. Joseph’s Babies Home. Opened in 1931 its run by the Sisters of St. Clare, mostly for children of single parents and broken homes. Indeed, any child in need of care, as Sisters Barbara, Sr. Marie Louise and Sr. Dymphna told us.
St. Joseph’s normally caters for about 25 children. At one time there were 90 there but with the current trend of single mothers keeping their children the figure has gone down.
The children arrive in Stamullen through the Health Board and stay there pending a decision on their future.
“It takes a lot to run the home but we are financed by the Health Board and supported by voluntary subscriptions. Drogbeda and Balbnggan have been very good to us,” Sr. Dymphna revealed.
A mile or so up the road from St. Joseph’s is St. Theresa’s Monastery of the Visitation at Silverstream — an enclosed community of 18 nuns including novices.
Self-supporting—they tend their own farm and derive most of their income from the making of altar breads — they have been in Stamullen since 1955 when the Brothers of St. John of God vacated the building, a former hunting lodge belonging to the Preston family.
The Superioress is Sr. Joseph Emmanuel, who was reared in Skerries. She keeps in touch with the area by reading the Drogheda Independent every week. “I am an avid reader,” she says. And Stamullen? “It has grown and developed a lot in the past 25 years. It is a lovely place.”
At St. Theresa’s we also spoke with Sr. Frances Theresa who told us that ladies and sisters from the Apostolic Congregation can enter to make a private retreat from May to September. She felt the new Community Centre had been marvellous for young people and said the parish newsletter kept them in touch with what was going on.