"Indeed, the progress of the Roman Catholic Church in this city is astonishing, and has no parallel perhaps in any country in Europe. In 1820, there were in Dublin only ten parochial chapels, most of them of an humble character and occupying obscure positions. There were at the same time seven convents or 'friaries,' as they were then called, and ten nunneries, which Mr. Wright described as 'religious asylums where the females of the Roman Catholic religion find shelter when deprived of the protection of their relatives by the hand of Providence.' [Footnote 50] Now the loveliest daughters of some of the most respectable and the best connected Roman Catholic families leave their happy homes and take the veil, sometimes bringing with them ample fortunes--devoting themselves to the work of education and the relief of the poor as 'Sisters of Mercy,' 'Sisters of Charity,' etc. [Footnote 50: Wright's _Dublin_, p. 174.] "There are now thirty-two churches and chapels in Dublin and its vicinity. In the diocese the total number of secular clergy is 287, and of regulars 125; total priests, 412. The number of nuns is 1150. Besides the Catholic University, with its ample staff of professors, there are in the diocese six colleges, seven superior schools for boys, fourteen superior schools for ladies, twelve monastic primary schools, forty convent schools, and 200 lay schools, without including those which are under the National Board of Education. The Christian Brothers have 7000 pupils under their instruction, while the schools connected with the convents in the diocese contain 15,000. Besides Maynooth, which is amply endowed by the state, and contains 500 or 600 students, all designed for the priesthood, there is the College of All Hallows, at Drumcondra, in which 250 young men are being trained for the foreign mission. The Roman Catholic charities of the city are varied and numerous. There are magnificent hospitals, one of which especially--the Mater Misericordiae--has been not inappropriately called 'the Palace of the Sick Poor'--numerous orphanages, several widows' houses, and other refuges for virtuous women; ragged and industrial schools, night asylums, penitentiaries, reformatories, institutions for the blind and deaf and dumb; institutions for relieving the poor at their own houses, and Christian doctrine fraternities almost innumerable. All these wonderful organizations of religion and charity are supported wholly on the voluntary principle, and they have nearly all sprung into existence within half a century."--p. 94. {212}