THE last Poor Clare nun who lived at the former Poor Clare Monastery in North Belfast before it closed a decade ago has passed away.
Sister Mary McGann passed away in Carlow's District Hospital on Monday, December 5 after suffering with dementia.
The Poor Clare Sisters were based on Cliftonville Road, but in the years leading up to its closure numbers had declined to just five nuns – the two Irish sisters in their 80s and three Filipinas.
The Poor Clare Sisters on the closing of their Cliftonville Monastery in North Belfast in 2012
The North Belfast monastery closed in 2012 after 90 years.
After leaving Belfast, Sr Mary transferred along with Sr Paschal to another Poor Clare's monastery in Carlow.
At a service in St Clare's Chuch, Graiguecullen, mourners were told how Sr Mary's passing marked the “definite death of the Poor Clare's era on the Cliftonville Road in Belfast,” and how she had been "welcomed and loved" in Carlow during her final years.
During a reading, one of those who helped to care for Sr Mary in hospital said she “always had a kind, gentle word and a beautiful smile.”
