[“Harriet Patricia Lenihan”, The Catholic Press (NSW), Thursday 17 January 1929, page 11]
Harriet Patricia Lenihan.
A NOTABLE WOMAN.
IN AUSTRALIA AND IRELAND.
A paragraph in the ‘Sunday Independent’ of November 25, told of the death at Cork of Miss Harriet Patricia Lenihan, daughter of the late Maurice Lenihan, the historian of Limerick, who was twice Mayor of that city. As a historian, Lenihan’s reputation is secure. He was the close friend and earnest supporter of O’Connell in the fight for Emancipation, as well, and was the first Ca tholic magistrate appointed in Ireland.
Lived with Lepers.
It is not, however, as the daughter of Maurice Lenihan that the memory of the lady who has just passed away should be honoured first. In her own right Harriet Patricia Lenihan is entitled to be ranked with the immortal few who have turned away from the comforts of civilisation to console and help the most stricken and abandoned of human beings.
The best years of her life have been one long golden deed, nursing a colony of lepers on a small island in the Indian Ocean.
Life in Australia.
Upon the death of her father 35 years ago, Harriet Lenihan, then in the prime of a singularly accomplished girlhood, left Limerick for Australia. Settling in Melbourne, she came quickly into prominence in the intellectual life of that city. Beside the literary talents she had inherited, and through which she gained the lasting friendship of several eminent Australians, she was a gifted musician and noted linguist. For several years she filled the position of organist in one of the churches in Melbourne, and had much success as a teacher of music and languages as well. Then chance turned her attention to a nobler field of labour.
Errand of Mercy.
An appointment to an administrative office in the public service brought her into indirect contact with the desolate Isle of Bernier at the mouth of Shark Bay, in Western Australia, and with the dread fate of its inhabitants—lepers all. The same miracle of grace that had urged Damien to the relief of the lepers of Molokai, a quarter of a century before, now descended upon this brave Irishwoman. Flinging every selfish consideration and caution to the winds—both future prospects and the risk of death creeping hideously through her body—she responded to the call, and set forth on her errand of mercy without delay.
Stricken Island.
That was in 1908. For upwards of 20 years after Harriet Lenihan, helped by a little band no less noble than she, devoted her life to the care of the lepers of Bernier. There were 70 in the stricken island when she arrived, all smitten with the dread disease, outcast aborigines, abandoned to the slow torture of a living death. She nursed them, she dressed their wounds, she comforted them when dying, and dug their graves with her own hands.
Back in Ireland.
On more than one occasion it was feared that she, like Father Damien, had contracted the leprosy through thus exposing herself to infection. Though the fears prov ed groundless, every time she became so worn out at intervals that rest and change alone were able to save her life. Then, with the cry of the lepers’ love and gratitude in her ears, would she return to Ireland to recup erate. But always the plight of her poor, afflicted ones predominated, and she would hasten back to them to spend herself afresh in their service.
Compelled at length to relinquish her noble labours, she returned home to die.
TERENCE O’HANLON.
AB notes:
This gushing tribute is riddled with errors. Harriet would have turned in her grave!
In particular, the focus of work at the lock hospitals was syphilis and not leprosy.
