To mark the anniversary of Flora MacKillop’s (Mary MacKillop’s mother) death on 30 May 1886, you are invited to join in this ‘virtual pilgrimage’ to Eden and Green Cape, New South Wales. This excerpt comes from the South-East of New South Wales Pilgrimage which traces the two journeys (1899 and 1901) of Mary MacKillop into this area.
Imagine yourself on this journey. The photos taken by Lyn Raftery rsj may help bring it to life.
Jeanette Foxe rsj
The initial link with Eden for Mary MacKillop was in 1886 when on 30 May, the Ly-ee-Moon was shipwrecked at Green Cape. Flora MacKillop (née McDonald), was one of the 71 lives lost in that tragic event. She was travelling from Melbourne to Sydney responding to Mary’s invitation to help with a big fund-raising bazaar to support the work of the House of Providence in The Rocks, Sydney. In her letter to her brother Donald on 17 June 1886, Mary wrote:
Mary was always grateful to the people of Eden for their care of her mother’s body, in particular to Mrs Power, a Catholic woman, who, on seeing the scapular, asked to take care of that body. Mr and Mrs Power owned the Pier Hotel so she and a local midwife, Mrs Emma Strangwidge, had the body placed in their best room. The two ladies reverently laid it out and surrounded it with flowers and lights until it was placed in the coffin. (O’Sullivan, Bernadette, 2018, One Door Closes Another Opens, p. 91)
Other local women also assisted and kept vigil.
Upon receiving the tragic news, Mary asked her cousin John McDonald to travel to Eden to identify the body and escort it on the SS Allowrie to Sydney.
This extract from The Freeman’s Journal (12 June 1886) describes the scene:
… Mr Charles O’Neill [founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society in NSW and resident of Gloucester Street, The Rocks] … and other friends received the remains on behalf of Mother Mary, and had them carried to St Joseph’s Providence [‘Cheshunt’], where a loving watch was kept all day in one of the large rooms, specially draped and festooned for the occasion. In the evening the remains were taken into the adjoining church, St Michael’s, it having been arranged that the Requiem and Office should be celebrated there on the following morning [probably 7 June 1886].
… The Absolution having been pronounced, the coffin, with all its wealth of flowers, including all those brought with the remains from Eden, was borne through the church and through two lines formed of the children of the Providence Home, neatly dressed in white with black badges, to the hearse which stood in the street. [2]
Flora MacKillop was buried in the cemetery at St Charles Borromeo Church, Ryde, where the Sisters of Saint Joseph were buried at that time. In 1973, her remains were removed to Macquarie Park Cemetery in North Ryde, so her memorial is in the current burial place of the Sisters of Saint Joseph.
The Ly-ee-Moon cemetery
The Ly-ee-Moon cemetery is near the Green Cape Lighthouse 45 kms south of Eden within the Beowa National Park. The route to the lighthouse is an unsealed gravel track and is not suitable for small cars with low clearance.
Reflection:
Prayer at the Cemetery
Almighty and Eternal God
We recognise the sadness and grief of the tragedy of the Ly-ee-Moon.
The unexpected deaths of the passengers and crew in such natural violence and chaos still impacts the peace of our hearts and spirit as we stand on this holy ground. We humbly place this sadness in your hands.
The beauty of your creation now surrounds this sacred site. May the songs of the birds and the rhythm of the waves bring comfort and solace.
We pray in gratitude that all those who perished now rest in peace.
Amen.
Footnotes:
[1]
[2] McCreanor, Sheila rsj, 2004, Mary MacKillop and Flora, p. 183