
1929-2024
Born: 4th September 1929
Entered Religious Life: 15th October 1951
Died: 21st October 2024
Mary O’Toole, daughter of Laurence O’Toole and Brigid O’Toole (nee Jackson), was born on 4th September 1929 in Greystones Co. Wicklow, the youngest in a family of six girls and one boy. She entered the Religious Sisters of Charity on the 15th October 1951 and was received into the Novitiate on 13th August 1952, taking the name Sr Peter Damien. She later reverted to her baptismal name. She was professed on 17th August 1954.
Throughout her Religious Life, Mary lived and ministered in various houses in the Irish Province. Community life was important to her and she contributed richly to it in Mountjoy Street, Milltown, Crumlin, Stanhope Street, Temple Street, Gardiner Street, St Vincent’s Elm Park and St Mary’s Donnybrook. Her ministry was spent in Education, both in Primary and Secondary Schools. Mary was a great educator and was Principal in Stanhope Street Secondary School for 19 years. She was a formidable woman with high standards and high expectations, yet was always fair. She had warm and caring spirit and a great capacity to understand the suffering, pain and anxieties of others. On many nights in winter or summer, she would set out to visit pupils or parents who were struggling or were in hospital, or call into families who needed support.
Following a Sabbatical in the Liturgical Institute in Carlow in 1985, Mary was once again appointed Principal in King’s Inns Street Secondary School, where she remained for 8 years. The number of people – staff, pupils and parents, whose lives she touched, will never be known. In her retirement, she became involved in Adult Education.
Family was very important to Mary and she enjoyed many milestone celebrations with family and extended family members over the years.
In July 2020, she transferred to Beechlawn Nursing Home where she was beautifully cared for by the staff there. During the past 4 years, she suffered in her growing debility and weakness. Sisters, family, friends and colleagues were saddened as they watched her struggle with dementia. Her death on Monday 21st October, was peaceful, without pain or fear. One of her preoccupations was to pack her bags and announce that she was ‘going home’. She has now reached her final destination, at home with the God whom she served so faithfully, generously and joyfully all her life.
Mary’s Funeral Mass was celebrated by Fr Ciarán O’Carroll on 25th October 2024, in the Church of the Sacred Heart, Donnybrook, followed by burial in the Community Cemetery, Donnybrook. May she rest in peace.