After a time, therefore, it is only natural that they should want to return to the convent.

This, however, lack of accommodation makes impossible.

A great object of the nuns, therefore, is to build a self-supporting home where these poor creatures can come when they are unable to obtain work outside. All that is required is the money for the building, since there are enough workers to make it self-supporting.

Owing to the want of such a home, many deaf mutes who have left the convent well educated have forgotten all they learned, and their lives have ended in misery.

When the late Queen Victoria paid her last visit to Ireland, she was accompanied by their Royal Highnesses Princess Christian of Schleswig-holstein, Princess Henry of Battenberg, the Queen of Spain - then a child - and the Princes Leopold and Maurice of Battenberg. The princesses and princes visited Cabra, accompanied by the Earl of Denbigh, and were so delighted with it that they went a second time, and expressed great interest and pleasure in all they saw.

Little Boys' School St. Mary's Dominican Convent