Irish Nuns at Ypres: An Episode of the War

In the autumn of 1914, the ancient Abbey of the Irish Dames in Ypres, nearly 250 years old, fell into the path of Germany's sweep toward the Channel ports. What follows is a harrowing account of Benedictine women accustomed to prayer and contemplation suddenly caught in modern industrial warfare: the thunder of bombardment, the collapse of their sanctuary, and a desperate evacuation through war-torn Flanders aided by The Royal Munster Fusiliers. Dame M. Columban, one of the refugees, kept meticulous notes that became this narrative, authenticated by the Prioress herself as 'perfectly true' and 'a simple narrative of our own personal experiences.' The story carries the reader from the shelling of a cloistered community through the chaos of flight to eventual safety in England, and finally to the founding of Kylemore Abbey in Connemara in 1920. This is not a war history but a testament to the particular vulnerability of women religious caught between faith and violence, and the quiet determination to rebuild when everything has been lost.