Episode Details

Changing Habits: 250 Years of Convent Life ... a 4 part series.

Conor Tallon met up with two of the sisters Sr Patricia and Sr Rosarie as well as dressmaker Sam Wynn and programme manager Danielle O Donovan.

Broadcast over 4 episodes this compilation tells the story in full.

The story of Nano Nagle Place's latest temporary exhibition which celebrates the continued use of the site on Douglas Street in Cork as a convent for 250 years. Changing Habits: 250 Years of Convent Life charts the construction of the oldest building, built in 1771, by Nano Nagle as home for the Ursuline Sisters she had invited to Cork from Paris. The exhibition then charts the foundation of the Presentation Sisters and the changing ways of life on the site up to the present day.

Using the rich archival records of the Ursuline and Presentation sisters, the exhibition also includes artefacts from the collection of objects held by the Presentation Sisters. The Exhibition features recreations of a complete set of nuns’ habits through the years. The oldest kind of habit, worn by the Presentation Sisters from 1805, changed very little for 140 years. Several changes then came in quick succession. The habit was made shorter, the huge sleeves were made detachable, and the bandeau and the guimpe, once made of starched linen, changed to celluloid. Dressmaker Sam Wynn, and the resident sisters here, have created what the ‘changing habits’ look like over time.

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