Mother Kevin Kearney, OSF: A Life of Radical Love and Service

Early Life: From Ireland to the Convent

Family

Mother Kevin (Maria Teresa) as a young girl

Teresa Kearney was born in Knockenrahan, Arklow, County Wicklow, Ireland on April 28, 1875 as the third daughter of farmer Michael Kearney and Teresa Kearney; a humble, devout Catholic family. Her father, a farmer, and her mother, a homemaker, instilled in her a deep faith and a commitment to serving others. Three months prior to Teresa Kearney’s birth, her father died in an accident. Following his death, Teresa’s mother remarried and had three more children. When Teresa was ten years old, her mother died. Her maternal grandmother, Grannie Grennell then raised Teresa in Curranstown, County Wicklow. Grannie Grennell had a profound impact on the formation of her character and spiritual beliefs and deep faith. When Teresa was 17, in 1892, Grannie Grennell died.

Education

Following her mother’s death, Teresa Kearney attended the local convent school in Arklow.
In 1889, following her grandmother’s death, Teresa went to the convent of Mercy at Rathdrum, Arklow, to train as a teacher. However, she did not have the finances to pay for training, and instead became an Assistant Teacher. She also took lessons in home-nursing and first aid.

From considering marriage to entering the convent

 At about 18, Teresa Kearney considered marriage and for her suitor she took a young bank clerk whom she planned to get engaged to.  Soon she left Ireland for London in search of a better job. Here she went to teach in a school run by the Sisters of Charity in Essex.  While there, she felt a call to religious life and called off the engagement.
Believing that God was calling her to be a Sister, she applied for admission to the Franciscan Sisters of the Five Wounds at Mill Hill, London. In 1895, Kearney entered St Mary’s Abbey, Mill Hill, London. On April 21, 1898, the Novice Teresa made her religious vows, taking the name of Sr. Mary Kevin, in honor of St. Kevin of Glendalough, Ireland’s 6th-century monastic Saint. She took the dedication of the Sacred Passion and her motto was “For Thee, Lord.” She volunteered to work with African Americans in the United States of America where her Institute had sisters working among the ex-slaves. She waited for six years for a posting to the American mission, but when the call from a foreign mission came, it came from Africa.

Path to Uganda

On December 3, 1902, Sister Kevin Kearney and five other sisters, with Sr. Mary Paul as their leader, left London for Nsambya, Uganda. Their Institute’s’ leaders chose them at the request of Bishop Hanlon of the Mill Hill Fathers. The sisters arrived on January 15,1903 and established a dispensary and school in Buganda, then under British colonial rule. Among the sisters were three Irish nationals, one American, one English, and one Scottish.

Assigned to attend to the sick, Sister Kevin Kearney started her first clinic under a mango tree near the convent. The first seven years of missionary work were tough for the sisters. Various diseases, from smallpox to malaria, ravaged Buganda. The infant mortality rate was also relatively high due to the high frequency of maternal deaths. In 1906, Sister Kevin Kearney was sent to expand the missionary field by setting up a school and a hospital in Naggalama, twenty-three miles away. Sister Paul, the group’s leader, fell ill in 1910 and she had to return to the United States of America.  Following this, Sister Kevin Kearney was appointed the new superior of the convent and assumed the title “Mother”. In 1913, three more sisters arrived, which allowed Mother Kevin Kearney to establish a third mission station in Kamuli, Busoga.^[1] All three stations focused on medicine and education for the local population with a focus on primary and secondary education, training of nurses, and the founding of clinics, hospitals and orphanages.

Over the next five decades, she became a transformative figure in the field of education, health care, pastoral and social work. and the formation of young ladies for Religious/Consecrated life.

MINISTIRIES CARRIED OUT UNDER MOTHER KEVIN’S LEADERSHIP

1. 1. 1. Education Pioneer: In the span of fifty-two years: 1903-1955
         • Founded close to twenty Primary Schools and a Secondary School to uplift the girl child
         • Started two Teacher Training Colleges to empower local women as educators
         • Founded the first mission Primary School for the Blind in Soroti – Eastern Uganda
         • Started the first Domestic Science School in Uganda to uplift the standard of women in the care of their homes and children
      2. Healthcare Visionary:
         • Built three Hospitals in Buganda, and five others in the Eastern Regions of Jinja, Bukedi, and Soroti, also extending into Kenya
         • Established a Nurses and Midwifery Training School to empower the natives to care for their sick brothers and sisters
         • Set up the first two Leprosy Centers in Uganda to care for lepers that were totally abandoned by their families
      3. Founding two Religious Institutes of Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa:
         • •  The Little Sisters of St. Francis

         In 1923, she founded the Little Sisters of St. Francis, a Religious Institute for African women. Starting with just 8 members, it now thrives with over 800 sisters across Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the United States.  The Little Sisters Motherhouse was established in Nkokonjeru in Lugazi Diocese. Its Generalate/Administration is located in Jinja Diocese.

         • The Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa 

   In September 1928, Mother Kevin returned to England to establish a novitiate exclusively for training sisters for the African missions. The novitiate was officially opened in 1929 at Holme Hall, Yorkshire in Scotland. As the African mission expanded, the needs of the sisters there could not be adequately be met by the Motherhouse in England.  Mother Kevin pushed for the separation of the African Province from the Motherhouse in England.

   Having got approval from Rome on June 9, 1952, the Sisters in the African Province became a new Religious Institute of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa (FMSA). Mother Kevin was officially recognized as its founder and she was appointed the first Superior General. Mount Oliver, Dundalk, became the Motherhouse for this new Institute. As Superior General Mother Kevin, although now advanced in years, continued to lead the sisters with enthusiasm in Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, and the USA.

   “We must do more than feed bodies; we must nourish souls.” ~ Mother Kevin to her sisters.

Experience of Missionary Life in Uganda

• Mother Kevin Kearney started her first clinic under a mango tree near the convent, with her small provision of medicines spread out on a small table. The first seven years of missionary work were tough for the sisters. Various diseases, from smallpox to malaria, ravaged Buganda. The infant mortality rate was also relatively high due to the high frequency of maternal deaths.
• Putting up buildings was not easy.  At the time building materials consisted of mud and wattle out of which huts were made.  But the structures were not permanent and had to be replaced each time they were destroyed by ants.  The missionaries introduced the making of bricks.  These too were made of mud mixed with grass and baked in furnaces.  The floors were made of mud mixed with cow dung.  The Sisters’ experience of permanent building that provided security and cleanliness was indeed not pleasant.
• Food was another challenge.  The sisters’ taste was nowhere close to that of the natives.  The available food was bananas, sweet potatoes, cassava roots accompanied by source made from beans or groundnuts.  Beef and fish were a rare commodity, and when available, it was prepared as stew in plain boiled water.
• Beds were made from pieces of dry wood and for stability they had to be drilled into the floor.
• Transport means was something to recon with.  One walked on foot wherever one wanted to go.  If one wanted to cover long distances, then one had to take breaks and sleep over at someone’s home.  This implied encountering animals and criminals along the way.  One could easily loose one’s life on such expeditions.  Remember there were no such a thing as roads except paths that wound up in forests or high bushes.  Crossing rivers was another trying experience as one had to steady one’s feet along a single trunk thrown over the river.

Such were the experiences that Mother Kevin and her Sisters went through,   enduring all with love for God and the people they came to serve.

Return to Ireland: A Dual Legacy

Mount Oliver, Dundalk motherhouse

By the 1950s, Irish vocations to her African missions surged. To accommodate this growth, Mother Kevin returned to Ireland and founded the Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa in 1952, establishing its motherhouse at Mount Oliver, Dundalk, County Louth. As its first Superior General, she bridged her African and Irish ministries, ensuring both congregations flourished.

Retirement: Final Years and Death

Mother House Nkokonjeru

Mother Kevin died in Brighton, Massachusetts, USA on October 17, 1957, at the age of 82. Her remains were flown to Ireland and initially buried at Mount Oliver. On insistence by the Ugandan people that she should be returned to “her native land” as they called it, her remains were repatriated to Uganda on December 3, 1957. Today, she rests in Nkokonjeru, a village thirty-six miles from Kampala, where her tomb is a pilgrimage site and the motherhouse of the Little Sisters of St. Francis. Ugandans affectionately call her “Maama” a cultural title of profound respect, for she was a mother to all.

Legacy: Seeds of Faith Across Continents

• In Africa: Her two Religious Institutes run 200+ schools, 50+ hospitals, and orphanages. St. Francis Nsambya Hospital remains a cornerstone of Ugandan healthcare.
• In Ireland: The Mount Oliver motherhouse now serves as a nursing home for elderly sisters, preserving her spirit of community care.
• Global Impact: Her writings on humility and service inspire clergy and laypeople worldwide.

The Road to Sainthood

• 2016: The Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints officially opened her beatification cause, declaring her a Servant of God.
• 2018 to Date: Promotion of the Cause among all people and praying for the required miracle.

“Mother Kevin didn’t just build hospitals; she built hope. Her cause is a gift to the universal Church.” ~ Archbishop Paul Ssemogerere of Kampala