19 January 1787: Mother Mary Frances Aikenhead was born  on this day at Daunt's Square off Grand Parade, Cork, Ireland. She was a frail child and was adopted out in her native city of Cork to a woman called Mary Rourke. Though baptised into the Church of Ireland it is thought that Mary was secretly baptised a Catholic from this early age by Mary Rourke who was a devout Catholic. However she was not formally received into the Catholic Faith until she was 15 years old on 6 June 1802. From an early age she was a devout disposition and wished to pursue a religious Life. 

In 1808, Mary went to stay with her friend Anne O’Brien in Dublin. Here she witnessed widespread unemployment and poverty and soon began to accompany her friend in visiting the poor and sick in their homes. From this experience she believed it would be her vocation to help the sick and the poor as a member of a religious Community. She trained for 3 years (1812-1815) in a convent in York, England in order to become a Nun. When she returned to Dublin she set up the Religious Sisters of Charity in Ireland. 

On 1 September 1815, the first members of the new institute took their vows, Sister Mary Augustine being appointed Superior General. Added to the traditional three vows of poverty chastity & obedience, was a fourth vow: to devote their lives to the service of the poor. For the next 15 years Mother Mary worked very hard to alleviate the sufferings of the less well-off but it took a terrible toll on her own Health.

During the Great Cholera Epidemic that swept across Europe from Asia and into Ireland in the year 1832 she organised Relief for the victims who were rendered helpless by this crippling waterborne parasite. 

Following a request from the Archbishop of Dublin Daniel Murray, a group of women known as the "Walking Nuns" entered the hospital to care for those who were sick and dying.

The women took a huge risk to undertake this task. They worked four-hour shifts, four people at a time. They washed, cleaned, fed, and offered emotional and spiritual support to those who were sick or dying. When they left the hospital, they washed both themselves and their clothes in lime and water thus reducing and even eliminating the risk of contagion. Only one of these ladies contracted the disease from which she recovered and none died. The "Walking Nuns" were some of the original sisters who followed the vision of Mary Aikenhead and who are now known as the Irish Sisters of Charity. The order work in the area to this day. 

Following the experiences of the sisters in Grangegorman, and realising the importance of nursing, Aikenhead sent three sisters to Paris to the Hospice de la Pitie to be trained in nursing and hospital management. By the time they returned, Aikenhead had secured £3,000 and opened St. Vincent's Hospital on St Stephen’s Green fulfilling her wish to have a hospital for the poor of Dublin.

Fr Alan Hilliard 

How Dublin dealt with the 19th century cholera epidemic (rte.ie)

The site for the new hospital was to be the Earl of Meath’s House, 56 St. Stephen’s Green which was purchased on behalf of the Sisters of Charity. The Sisters then took  formal possession of house. & J.M O’Ferrall was appointed first physician. In April 1835 it opened with a ward for 12 female patients.

However she did not let her own personal misfortune get her down:

“Low spirits and dreads of evil to ourselves or Congregation, or even to the church, are actually the beginnings of despair. If all the rest of the world goes wrong, we should still persevere in trying to serve our God with faith and fervour.” (7 November 1834)

Confined to bed or a wheelchair she continued to direct her charges and set up new institutions both at home and abroad. Her Sisters were particularly active during the great Cholera outbreak in 1832. She died in Dublin, aged 71 on 22 July 1858 in Our Lady’s Mount Harold’s Cross and was buried in in the cemetery attached to St. Mary Magdalen's, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.