Sr Goretti is remembered for her kindness as a nun and a nurse, at home and abroad 

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SISTER Goretti Ward, who died peacefully in Catherine McAuley House, Beaumont, Dublin on 31 October, will be remembered with great affection in the Carlow area as a nursing sister with a great love for the sick and vulnerable.

She will also be remembered for her warm, gentle and pleasant personality which endeared her to all who knew her.

She was born Mary Margaret Ward on 29 July 1934 to William and Margaret Ward in Drounreagh, Durrus, Co Cork. She was the fifth member and only girl in a family of five and was predeceased by her brothers Thomas, William, Michael and Seán.

Taking the name Goretti in religion, she entered St Leo’s Convent of Mercy, Carlow as a postulant in 1951 and made her final profession in St Leo’s in 1959.

Sr Goretti trained for general nursing in Dublin’s Mater Hospital from 1954 to 1957. She qualified in maternity nursing in Cork during the 1960s. She also went to Glencar, Co Louth to train in mentally handicapped nursing in the 1960s.

Sr Goretti ministered for the greater part of her nursing career in the Sacred Heart Home and Bethany House in Barrack Street, Carlow town. She was a Superior in the Sacred Heart Home from 1984 to 1991 and, having taken a sabbatical in 1991-1992, finally retired in 1999, Sr Goretti spent some years nursing in Bethany House. This was a small branch of the Sacred Heart Home for people who could, more or less, look after themselves but required residential care.

During these years, Sr Goretti lived in Fr Byrne Park in Graiguecullen, Carlow with Sister Nancy McLoughlin and Sister Maureen Kelly.

In September 2000, Sr Goretti, Sr McLoughlin and Fr Jim O’Connell, current parish priest of Ballon-Rathoe, visited Nuu, a bush country in Kitui District, Kenya. The following year, Goretti obtained permission to go on the missions to work there with the poor and Aids patients. She felt deeply the call to return there in her years of retirement.

Goretti served untiringly among the poor in Nuu, where she initiated a sight saving programme with eye specialist Bernard Jennings of Jennings Optician, Dublin Street, Carlow.

It was in 2006 that Goretti met with Bernard, who was invited to visit her in Nuu to carry out eye tests. What initially was meant to be a small operation grew and in 2007 Bernard was carrying out hundreds of tests, which led on to thousands of tests being conducted this year.

Bernard has persuaded colleagues to join him in his endeavours and, as a result, an important health care service had been developed in this part of Africa.

Sr Goretti loved to tell how, after sight-restoring surgery, those poor ‘blind’ people would shout for joy, jump around and exclaim “Miracle! Miracle.” She also told a story of how, once in an emergency in Kenya, she had to deliver a baby on a roadside in the dust.

In 2008 she returned home to Cork for the death and funeral of her brother, Billy.

Sr Goretti moved back to Nuu in 2010. Following one of her trips home she returned to her mission but, unfortunately, she suffered a fall, broke her leg and ended up in the Mater Hospital, Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

The good nun returned from Kenya to St Leo’s community for some years, but due to failing health, she moved to Catherine McAuley Nursing Home, Dubin, where she was lovingly cared for, especially in her last days.

There was a constant stream of mourners to Healy’s Funeral Home, Pollerton Castle, Carlow where Sr Goretti reposed on All Saints Day (1 November). This was reflective of the appreciation felt by the people of her adopted Carlow for years of outstanding nursing care amongst them.

Prayers were led at Healy’s by Denis Nulty, Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin.

Other priests in attendance, all of whom joined in readings, included Monsignor Brendan Byrne; Fr Thomas O’Byrne, Adm, Carlow; Fr Tommy Dillon, CC, Askea-Bennekerry-Tinryland; Fr Jimmy O’Reilly, Kiltegan Father; and Fr Jim O’Connell.

Mercy Order colleagues of Sr Goretti were also in attendance while, over the course of the weekend of the obsequies, a number of her nieces and nephews travelled from County Cork and overnighted in Carlow.

Fr O’Byrne celebrated the funeral Mass assisted by Monsignor Byrne in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Carlow where Sr Goretti had spent time in worship when she lived there.

Following Mass, Sr Goretti was laid to rest in the Mercy Sisters plot at St Mary’s cemetery.

She will be sadly missed by her nieces and nephews, her community in St Leo’s, sisters of the congregation of Sisters of Mercy, especially the south-central and Kenya branches, and by her many friends in Carlow, Cork and Kenya.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis.