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CAME TO ST. BERNARD'S
By invitation in 1874, Mother Mary Joseph Hickey and eleven Sisters of the Presentation left County Cork, Ireland, to come and teach at St. Michael's School on West 31st Street in New York City.
Due to the traveling conditions of the day many adults died on the long journey from Ireland. As the travelers disembarked, authorities took children left without parents to the nearest church to be housed. To fill the need in 1884, Sisters of the Presentation established a home for orphaned children on Staten Island.
By 1886 in Fitchburg, Father Phillip Garrigan of St. Bernard's Church heard from a fellow priest that he had received a wonderful education from the Sisters of the Presentation in Ireland. Upon his recommendation, the pastor went to NYC, to meet the Sisters. So twelve years after the Sisters arrived in New York City, some Sisters were sent to Fitchburg and commissioned to open a school for St. Bernard's Parish in Fitchburg, MA. The year was 1886.
In the 1800's it was traditional for each ethnic group to have their own parish. Therefore it was proper that Father Garrigan would ask Irish Sisters to teach in his Irish parish at St. Bernard's.