A NUN from Drimoleague who joined the French Resistance and endured a Nazi concentration camp has been honoured for her bravery, in France.
The ceremony in Béthune honoured Sr Marie Laurence, originally Katherine McCarthy, who died in 1971, but played an important role in the French Resistance during World War II in occupied northern France.
The ceremony was led by the Béthune mayor Olivier Gacquerre and other city officials. In attendance were Sr Marie Laurence’s niece, Sr Breda, and grand-nieces, Irish consul Hannah E Twomey, Alliance Française de Cork president Valérie David-McGonnell, a delegation of French Franciscan sisters, and a large number of history enthusiasts.
The event paid solemn tribute to Sr Marie Laurence and three other female members of the French Resistance, Sylvette Leleu, Louise Delestrez and Françoise Beaurain.
The plaque in Sr Marie's honour.
Katherine McCarthy grew up in Driminidy, Drimoleague, and joined the Franciscans at 18. She began working as a nurse at Béthune Hospital aged 20, during World War I. She returned to Béthune Hospital in 1940, during WWII, to care for wounded soldiers and civilians.
During the Nazi occupation, she became involved with the French Resistance network ‘Musée de l’Homme’, helping with the exfiltration of allied soldiers and the gathering of intelligence.
She was arrested by the Gestapo in June 1941 and initially sentenced to death, although this was commuted to internment and deportation. She was interned from June 18th 1941 to August 11th, 1942 and then deported until April 24th, 1945, to various prisons and camps, including the women’s concentration camp Ravensbrück. Her weight plummeted from 70kg to 42kg. After the war, she returned to Ireland and later became Mother Superior of the Honan Home in Cork. She died in 1971 and is buried in St Finbarr’s Cemetery.
She was awarded several medals, including the ‘Médaille commémorative Française de la guerre 1939-1945’ and the silver ‘Médaille de la reconnaissance Française’. In 2014, she was one of the 50 Irish members of the French Resistance honoured at the unveiling of a plaque at the Irish College in Paris. She now has a plaque in the sisters’ section of the Béthune’s North Cemetery.
In her speech at the ceremony, president of Alliance Française de Cork Valérie David-McGonnell, who first learned of Sr Marie Laurence’s story while researching historical Franco-Irish connections for her Master’s thesis a few years ago, announced that in the autumn, one of the classrooms at Alliance Française de Cork would be renamed in honour of Sr Marie Laurence.
