Dowling, Margaret (Sister Mary Dominic) (1853–1900), Dominican Sister and foundress, was born in Ballyconra, Co. Kilkenny, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Dowling. Margaret received a rudimentary education locally and emigrated to New York in 1869. On 23 June 1876 she entered the Dominican Congregation of the Holy Rosary (founded 6 May 1876). She received the Dominican habit 8 December 1876, taking the religious name Sister Mary Dominic, and was professed 8 December 1878.
When the English-born foundress of this order died (2 March 1879), her sister became prioress but was removed from office after one year because she lacked administrative skills. During the election (9 April 1880), when several ballots failed to elect a successor, Sr Mary Dominic, a lay sister and convent cook, was appointed prioress for three years by the archbishop's vicar general. She became the refounder of the congregation. Since the congregation was impoverished, the vicar general forbade the reception of new members until it became a financially viable community. The members of the community were free to return to secular life or enter another religious congregation. Only eight professed sisters who had Irish surnames remained. The division between choir and lay sisters was maintained. Mother M. Dominic became an American citizen (13 June 1880) and made an application for the incorporation of the Dominican Congregation of Our Lady of the Rosary on 11 August 1880. The prohibition against the admission of new members was lifted in 1882, and by 1895 there were seventy-one professed sisters, fifteen novices and postulants. Mother M. Dominic guided the congregation from 1880 to 1900 except for the years 1893–6, when she was out of office. Funds were raised to build a convent, an orphanage, and a refuge for women, which were opened November 1881, a home for coloured children in Rye, NY (1892), and a home for babies in the Bronx, NYC (1897), because the ‘Children's law’ made no provision for state payments for children under two years of age.
Convents were founded in the archdioceses of New York and St Louis, in the dioceses of Brooklyn, Rockville Centre, Syracuse, Wilmington, Jefferson City, and Albany. Fifty-two schools were opened in New York City and State, twenty-one schools in Missouri, a teacher training college for religious sisters in Sparkill, Troy, NY, and a commercial school in the Bronx, NYC. The congregation remained vigorous long after her death: in 1966 there were 894 professed sisters who were engaged in education, social service, and child-care in New York (city and state), in the states of Missouri and Delaware, and in Pakistan.
Mother M. Dominic Dowling died at St Agnes Convent, Sparkill, on 14 July 1900, and was interred in the convent cemetery there.