Catherine was born in 1778 in Dublin and inherited a considerable fortune from her adoptive parents. Part of this money she invested in the construction of a large building, the House of Mercy, made up of classrooms, dormitories and a chapel, in Baggot Street. The house provided Dublin's poor and needy with education and welfare.

Catherine at first had no intention of founding a religious congregation but instead hoped to use volunteers. The Archbishop of Dublin did not approve of women operating any institution without the protection and authority of the Bishop. He insisted that she close the House of Mercy or found a Religious Congregation. In 1830, at the age of fifty-two, Catherine and her two friends began their novitiate training at the Presentation Convent.

The Sisters of Mercy flourished. By the time of her death in November 1841, she had founded fourteen Mercy convents in Ireland and England. During the next decade, pioneering Sisters set out from Ireland to America, Canada, Scotland and Australia to continue the work that Catherine McAuley had started.

The Sister who led the group of pioneering nuns to Australia was Ursula Frayne, who, with five other Sisters, was chosen to form a foundation in Perth, W.A. Their sea voyage lasted 114 days. They established a convent in St George's Terrace in January 1846. The Sisters faced enormous problems including disease, lack of facilities, lack of money, extreme heat and barely enough Catholic children to keep the school running. However, she and her fellow Sisters kept working among the homeless, Aboriginal women and children and the newly arrived migrants to Perth.

Because of their hard work, a vast network of Mercy Schools and Hospitals were established in Perth and throughout Australia, including Aranmore (St. Mary's) in 1903.

Edmund Ignatius Rice

On October 6 1996, Br. Edmund Rice was beatified. This was in recognition of the work that Edmund had achieved through his own heroic and virtuous life, and through the work of the Christian Brothers that he founded. Edmund Rice was born in Callan, Ireland in 1762. He was a rich, well-educated man who had a very comfortable lifestyle. He was a successful businessman, yet all his material possessions did not distract him from his spiritual nature. He spent much of his wealth and time working with the poor and the oppressed.

Edmund lived in Ireland in a time of very bad social conditions and enormous poverty. At the age of forty, Edmund decided to dedicate his life to issues of justice, particularly among young boys. These children were often impoverished, illiterate and without a future. They lived in appalling conditions without anyone to provide for them. They had no access to education and Edmund realised that they may end up victims of alcohol or crime. So, Edmund started his first school for these young boys.

The first school was in a stable. Soon other young men who shared his vision joined him, and schools for poor boys' sprang up all over Ireland.

Edmund Rice died in 1844 on August 29. The work he had started continued in Ireland, England and Gibraltar. Irish immigrants who came to Australia were anxious to have access to the style of education that had been set up by Edmund Rice. Schools in Australia in the 19th century had to be 'secular' - they were not allowed to have any religious instruction. This was partly a carry over from the English settlers who feared an educated Irish population gaining control of the Australian Colonies.

All Catholic schools had to be paid for by Catholic people, and because the Catholic people in Australia were amongst the poorest, they found this very difficult. The Catholics begged their Bishops to invite the Christian Brothers to Australia and so that is how the Christian Brothers came, as the first order of teaching men, to be in Australia.

In 1874 the Brothers came to WA. They had a school in St George's Terrace. In 1942 the Christian Brothers came to Leederville, and the school opened with one hundred and forty boys. In 1986 the school, known as CBC Leederville, amalgamated with St. Mary's to become Aranmore Catholic College.