A heroic Irish nun who saved hundreds of lives during two world wars is to be honored next month in France, where his name is revered.
Kate McCarthy, who was born in Drimoleague, Co Cork, in December 1895, received the name Sister Marie-Laurence when she joined the order of the Franciscans in 1913, and was transferred to Béthune in northern France, where she worked in a hospital.
She nursed Allied soldiers during WWI, and later, during WW2, she worked with the French Resistance as part of her Musée de l’Homme escape network, where she helped more than 120 Allied soldiers to escape Occupied France.
She was captured by the Gestapo in 1941 and spent a year in solitary confinement before being sentenced to death in 1942 – a sentence she escaped.
She was jailed at Dusseldorf Lubeck and Hamburg before she was sent to the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp for refusing to make gas masks. It’s estimated 130,000 women and children were imprisoned there between 1939 and 1945.
Forced to do physical work with almost no food, her weight fell from 70kg to 27kg – around four stone – before the camp was liberated on April 30, 1945, two days after Hitler’s suicide.
She and the other survivors were handed over to the Red Cross.
Following rehabilitation in Sweden and England, she returned to France a year later where she was personally decorated for her bravery by General Charles de Gaulle and later honored by Winston Churchill.
She returned to Ireland to live in the Honan Home Convent in Cork, where she was appointed Mother Superior. She died in 1971 and is buried in St Finbarr’s Cemetery.
While her story is virtually unknown in Ireland, Sandrine Donchez, the deputy director of culture and events at Béthune City Council, said Sr Marie-Laurence’s story “is intimately linked to that of Béthune.”
“During WW2, many women decided to resist by joining the ‘army of shadows’,” she said.
“They played an important but underestimated role during the Occupation – liaison or intelligence agents, messengers, radio operators, hosts of resistance fighters or Jews. Their commitment often meant they paid a high price.
“A few months before the 80th anniversary of the Liberation, it was obvious to pay tribute to some of these remarkable women of the Béthunoise resistance – Sylvette Leleu, Sister Marie-Laurence, Françoise Beaurain, Marie Delestrez.”
The town has now installed an interpretive plaque telling Sr Marie-Laurence’s story in an area of the town’s northern cemetery dedicated to the Franciscan Sisters, which is also being restored.
“We owe her,” she said.
“The city of Béthune, the historical associations, the congregation of the Franciscans are all proud to be able to honor this exceptional lady and to continue this duty of remembrance.”
The plaques to the town’s leading female resistance fighters who will be unveiled at a ceremony on May 24 next.
