No. 4 Lauriston Gardens
		In 1850 Jane Grant went to Limerick to train as a Sister of Mercy with the intention of returning to Edinburgh to establish a Convent there. Not long after her arrival she died, but her sister Helen had also entered the Limerick Novitiate and as Sister Mary Juliana accompanied Mother Mary Clare McNamara to Scotland in July 1858 to start the Edinburgh Foundation.
	Bishop James Gillis Appeal
		Bishop James Gillis had appealed to the Sisters of Mercy to come to Edinburgh to help with the education and instruction of the Catholic poor whose numbers had been swollen by the influx of Irish and Italian immigrants. Many non-Catholics among the Scottish aristocracy identified with the small community and helped them to alleviate the social miseries of the day. A recent convert, Mrs Isabella Cunningham-Hutchison took steps to finance the building of St. Catharine's. The Sisters' first home was a small house in Wharton, now Lauriston Lane, where they lived for the first two years. The intended Superior, Mother Gertrude Ryan, and a postulant arrived soon after the first Sisters and at the end of August of the same year they were joined by four more Sisters.
	Sister's new Convent in 1861
		In April 1861, on the feast of St Catherine of Siena, the Sisters took possession of their new Convent, which they dedicated to that saint. Sr M. Juliana became the new Superior. The Sisters taught in schools in the city by day and in the evening they trained pupil teachers. They also opened a House of Mercy in the house donated by Mrs Cunningham-Hutchison. By 1872 they had spread their apostolate further when they responded to a request by the Jesuits to teach in their new school, St Ignatius'. At this time, they were also teaching in the Cathedral School and at St Davids' Dalkeith where they opened a house in 1876.
	Beginnings of St Thomas of Aquin's new College
		Mother Agnes Snow was elected Superior in 1872 and under her aegis the Sisters were well equipped to cope with the ever increasing demands resulting from the new Education Act of that same year. Mother Agnes saw and met the need to train Catholic teachers and ensured that her own Sisters also received a thorough training. She founded St Thomas Aquinas College which was a centre for the Cambridge Teaching Diploma. This College continued until the opening of the Notre Dame Training College in Glasgow in 1896. St Thomas of Aquin's High School for Girls was recognised by the Board of Education in 1905.
			Mother Agnes Snow
	The House of Mercy
		Mother Agnes was equally concerned for the care and welfare of the girls from the House of Mercy, which provided accommodation for girls who had work but nowhere to stay, and unemployed girls and the orphans were given a training course which would enable them to find work. In 1880 a laundry was built to provide an income for the House of Mercy. A bazaar to raise money for the laundry was opened by Lord Napier in the presence of Archbishop John Strain, Lord Napier summed up the lives of the Sisters as follows:
		'Their life was passed on the thoroughfares of the city, in the wards of hospital and in the lodgings of the poor.'
		When St Catharine's Private School was closed in 1951, a hostel was opened to provide accommodation for students. Two years later the Sisters were asked by Cardinal Gray to form a small Community to assist with the domestic duties in the new Major Seminary in Drygrange. The Sisters remained there until 1985. In 1983 McAuley House, the original House of Mercy, which had been used as a student hostel, was leased to the University for the same purpose. Part of the building was retained and modernised to provide facilities for many Parish activities.
		The apostolate of education is still very much part of the Community ministry either directly by involvement in the Schools or indirectly by providing facilities for many groups. Much is done to help the homeless.
		At our General Chapter of 1992, St Catharine's was designated as a Mercy Centre - a place of hospitality and mercy, a place of outreach and refuge for the most broken and needy in our society.
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© St Catharine's Mercy Centre 2005