Sr Hyacinth Quinlan

Bridget Quinlan (Hyacinth) was born on 22 August 1850 in the family home at Rossmore near Clare in South Australia.¹ Her mother, Lucy Naulty, born at Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland sailed to Australia in 1846 to join her older sister, Sarah who had married and was living near Clare.  Lucy married Irish farmer Richard Quinlan on 25 April 1847 and eleven children were born in sixteen years - Jeremiah, Ellen, Bridget, Lucy, who died aged six years, Patrick, Mary, Lawrence, twins Peter and Elizabeth, who died shortly after birth, Anne and John.² Bridget the third child of the marriage was baptized by Fr Denis McGuinn on 23 August 1850.³

Both Quinlan parents are buried at Sevenhill cemetery and a stained glass window dedicated to the memory of Richard is in St Michael’s Catholic Church, Clare.⁴

Bridget and her older sister, Ellen, both entered the Sisters of St Joseph. Bridget entered the Sisters of St Joseph a year before her sister on 16 August 1868 at the Franklin Street Convent, received the habit on 15 November 1868 and made her first profession of vows as Sr Hyacinth of St John the Baptist on Christmas Day 1869. Her sister, Ellen, joined the Josephites in Adelaide on 11 June 1869, receiving the habit three months later she was professed as Sister Michael of the Immaculate Conception on 8 September 1869.

Hyacinth and Michael  Quinlan both  ceased wearing the habit during the period of Mary MacKillop’s excommunication and resumed it later.⁵ Hyacinth remained in Adelaide during this period, Michael, however returned to her home in Clare. Both Hyacinth and Michael resumed living religious life after the unrest in March 1872 and the former made her Life Vows at Perthville on 27 December 1872 and the latter in Adelaide on 12 February 1875.⁶

Hyacinth’s first teaching appointment was as an infant teacher in Adelaide where 300 pupils were in attendance. She later moved to Port Adelaide, where she completed her novitiate and then spent some months at the Infant School West Terrace before being transferred to Wallaroo. At the time of her appointment to Bathurst foundation Hyacinth was principal of one of the suburban schools in Adelaide. She was selected by Fr Woods to be part of the foundation in the Bathurst diocese arriving at The Vale on 16th July 1872.⁷

Hyacinth transferred to the Tasmanian group in 1891 after founding the Diocesan New Zealand Josephites at Wanganui in 1880. Hyacinth’s appointment as Sister Guardian on January 9, 1905 occurred by default, when during the Chapter of elections three ballots yielded no absolute majority. The Sisters’ inability to elect their Superior, once again saw the Coadjutor Archbishop, Patrick Delany appoint Sister Mary Hyacinth Superior for a further three years.⁸

Hyacinth’s role as Sister Guardian received endorsement, when at the Chapter of Elections in 1908 she was elected by an absolute majority at the first scrutiny. During Hyacinth’s term as Sister Guardian, Archbishop Delany organized the movement of the motherhouse to New Town, a suburb on the northern outskirts of Hobart. Archbishop Delany’s purpose was twofold: to provide an adequate convent for the Sisters and their novices and to enable him to oversee their teaching training in order for them to meet the requirements of the Teachers’ Registration Act of 1907.

Hyacinth was a link to the Congregation’s origins to Mary MacKillop’s community in Adelaide, through the separation from that community at Bathurst, and across to New Zealand. In her final destination in Tasmania she made a lasting contribution to the growth of that congregation.

Hyacinth’s role in the development of the Diocesan Sisters of St Joseph was paramount as she assumed the responsibility for the safeguarding of the original spirit of the Congregation and ensured that the tradition was upheld and preserved in the reformed group at Perthville, after the separation from the centrally governed Sisters of St Joseph in 1876.