Sister Irene

Sister Irene (May 12, 1823 – August 14, 1896) was born Catherine FitzGibbon in London, and died in New York City.

At the age of nine she emigrated to Brooklyn, New York with her parents, and in 1850 joined the community of the Sisters of Charity at Mount St. Vincent, New York, taking the name of Irene. During her novitiate she taught in St. Peter's parish school, and became a sister servant there. Sister Irene, noting a constant increase in the number of homeless and abandoned children and infants, advocated the establishment of a foundling asylum, The New York Foundling. At that time no public provision was made to take care of abandoned infants. When picked up in the streets, they were sent to the municipal charity institutions to be looked after by the residents there. Many were left at the doors of the sisters' schools and houses, in the hope that they might receive from them some special consideration. Archbishop McCloskey sanctioned the project and in 1869 Sister Irene was assigned to put it into effect. After visiting the public homes for infants in several cities she organized a woman's society to collect the necessary funds for the proposed asylum. With those funds a house (17 East Twelfth Street in New York City) was hired, and on October 11, 1869, the foundling asylum was opened with a cradle at its door. On the evening of the same day it received its first infant, and forty-four others followed before the end of the month. Within a year a larger house (3 Washington Square, North) had to be bought.

In 1870 the city was authorized by the Legislature to give the asylum the block bounded by Third and Lexington Avenues, Sixty-eighth and Sixty-ninth Streets, for the site of a new building, and $100,000 for the building fund, provided a similar amount was raised by private donation. Of the required sum, $71,500 was realized by a fair held in 1871, and $27,500 came from three private donations. The new building was opened in October, 1873. The name "The Foundling Asylum", under which it was incorporated in 1869, was changed by legal enactment in 1891 to "The New York Foundling Hospital". In addition to caring for the children, homeless and indigent mothers were also provided for by St. Ann's Maternity Hospital, which was opened in 1880. Sister Irene's whole life was given to the care of foundlings, and just before she died she founded the Seton Hospital for Incurable Consumptives (victims of tuberculosis), the cost of which ($350,000) she collected herself.