Moloney, Frances Isabella Sophia Mary (Sister Mary Patrick) (1873–1959), co-founder of the Missionary Sisters of St Columban, was born 18 April 1873 in London, daughter of Henry Owen Lewis , landlord and later MP for Carlow (1874–80), and Frances Owen Lewis (née Elsegood). The main family estate was in Enniskeen, Co. Monaghan, but the family also had properties elsewhere in Ireland and in England. The name ‘Sophia’ was given to Frances and her sister in memory of a maternal ancestor, a Hapsburg princess. A frequent visitor to the family home was King George V of Hanover, who became godfather to Frances's sister Frederica. Educated at home by governesses and at the Sacred Heart Convent, Hove, Sussex, Frances was presented at court in 1891 and entered the social life of her class in Ireland and England. She married (2 March 1897) a widower, Capt. Sir Alfred Moloney, KCMG, governor of the Windward Islands and later governor of Trinidad and Tobago. On 9 August 1902 Sir Alfred and Lady Frances attended the coronation of Edward VII in Westminster abbey and, later, a banquet and ball in Windsor castle.
Sir Alfred and Lady Frances returned to Ireland on his retirement from the colonial service. During the retirement years the Moloneys lived in England and travelled frequently to Europe. Frances took up journalism to supplement Alfred's pension, writing for a fashionable women's weekly journal, The Throne, in the social and personal section under the title ‘The whispering gallery’. She also contributed ‘Notes and news’ to another ladies’ journal, The Planet. In 1911 the Moloneys moved to Rome when Alfred's health declined. He died in Fiesole 13 August 1913. In 1914 Frances returned to Dublin, where she became involved in work for Belgian refugees and became a member of a committee which sought accommodation and support for them. She also helped to relieve the poverty of the poor in the parish of the pro-cathedral. For five years she was interested in entering religious life; but in 1918, following a talk by Fr John Blowick (qv) about the newly founded Maynooth mission to China and the need for women missionaries to work with priests, her focus changed direction. She contacted him, and together they took steps towards the foundation of the congregation that was to become known as the Missionary Sisters of St Columban. In preparation for her future missionary work, Frances commenced (16 January 1919) midwifery training in the National Maternity Hospital, Holles St., and underwent general nurse training in the Mater Hospital as an extern student from 3 November 1919 to June 1921, during which time she attended a three-month course in tropical medicine in London, attended a six-week course in the Skin and Cancer Hospital in Hume St., Dublin (September–October 1921), and got some further experience at the Lock Hospital in Townsend St., followed by a course at the Eye and Ear Hospital in November and December of the same year. She also took lessons from a pharmacist on compounding prescriptions. When the approval for the new missionary congregation came from Rome, the noviciate (house of training) was opened (7 February 1922) in Cahiracon, Co. Clare. Fr John Blowick, superior general of the Maynooth mission to China, and Lady Frances Moloney were the co-founders. Three Irish Sisters of Charity agreed to undertake the training of the first thirteen women at Cahiracon: Mother Mary Camillus Dalton, Sister Mary Alphonsus Hartnett, and Sister Mary Bartholomew McHugh. On 4 October 1922 Frances and eight companions received the religious habit of the new congregation. Frances took the name ‘Sister Mary Patrick’. Due to ill health her profession was deferred; she made her first profession 29 July 1925 and her final profession 2 June 1931.
On 11 September 1926 the first five sisters, including the 53-year-old Sister Patrick, left for China, a country plagued by bandits, civil war, and communist revolutionaries. They arrived in Hankow (15 November 1926) and travelled to Hanyang. Due to increasing anti-foreign agitation the sisters were forced to depart (5 April 1927) to Shanghai, but returned to Hanyang on 15 November. Sister Patrick treated the sick in her dispensary and in their homes. The next ten years were spent in two locations, Hanyang and Sientaochen, ministering to the Chinese people in very difficult conditions of poverty, disease (including epidemics of cholera, typhoid, and dysentery), and warfare, including the sacking of one of her convent homes by communist troops; accommodating and caring for refugees from outlying villages; and major floods, including the massive 1931 flood when the Yangtze broke its banks. On that occasion about 800 people were sheltered and fed in the convent compound from August till the floods abated in mid October. Sister Patrick and her companions also nursed the victims of the cholera epidemic in the various camps throughout the region set up to cope with it. In addition to giving anti-cholera injections, Sister Patrick was part of a team of doctors and nurses who gave vaccinations against smallpox to fight an outbreak of this disease in the aftermath of the flood. Her pharmaceutical knowledge was helpful in dealing with cases of opium overdose and attempted suicides by drugs.
On her election (30 September 1936) as the third superior general of the congregation, she returned to Ireland. During her ten years in office Mother Patrick made the congregation better known in Ireland by pioneering promotional work and recruitment of candidates throughout Ireland with visitation of universities, schools, and hospitals. In 1938 she took over and staffed Sancta Sophia School for the children of White Russians in exile in Shanghai. The sisters teaching in this school adopted the Slav–Byzantine religious rite followed by the students and their parents. Foundations were made in the Philippines in 1939 and Burma in 1945.
War broke out in Europe on 3 September 1939, making travel difficult both in the East and the West. This did not deter Mother Patrick from visiting the Philippines and China, followed by a fund-raising mission in the US. She secured a passage home on the Western Prince, a large British liner bound for England, which left New York on 6 December 1940 and was torpedoed by a German submarine 400 miles west of Scotland. After nine hours in a lifeboat she was rescued by a small Scottish collier bound for New York. Most of the survivors got aboard by climbing a rope ladder, but Mother Patrick was hauled up in a coal basket.
During her term of office she sent two of the first four missionary sisters to study medicine in UCD. The Vatican had lifted the ban on nuns qualifying for medicine and midwifery. She purchased 56 Merrion Square as a house for student sisters. In 1937 she secured a Clare county council scholarship for John Haugh, a gifted wood-carver, who was the foster son of the convent gardener. He was awarded a five-year scholarship to the Benedictine School of Arts and Crafts at Glenstal Priory, followed by a two-year scholarship awarded by Glenstal to the École des Métiers d'Art in the Benedictine abbey at Maredsous, Belgium. On his return to Ireland he was commissioned to carve the Stations of the Cross for the chapel in Dublin castle. His work may be seen in churches around the world.
In 1946 Mother Patrick completed her extended term as superior general and was elected vicar general to her successor, remaining in that office till July 1952. She published and was editor of the congregational magazine, Star of the East, from its first issue in 1947. Its purpose was to make the congregation better known, to encourage vocations to the congregation, and to secure benefactors.
Mother Mary Patrick died (15 August 1959) in Cahiracon, Co. Clare, and is buried in the convent cemetery in Magheramore, Co. Wicklow.