A 'peculiarly fitting' institute: The origins of Marie Martin's Medical Missionaries of Mar

When Marie Martin founded the Medical Missionaries of Mary in 1937, she drew upon a tradition of Irish women and their experiences of religious life throughout the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Through an investigation of Irish women's participation in Catholic religious life from the inception of modern Irish congregations in the early-nineteenth century Ireland, their subsequent religious involvement with the diasporic populations in the Anglophone Empire during the nineteenth century, and finally, their pioneering membership of early missions to non-Western populations in the expanding British Empire of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, this dissertation traces the increasingly modernized and active religious life that developed among Irish nuns.;Officially, Irish missionary nuns were members of the colonizing nation; unofficially, their status was far more ambiguous and complex. As British subjects, they held a linguistic and cultural advantage over continental Catholics within the context of this expanding Empire in such regions as British East and West Africa. Even after the establishment of the Free State, a distinct relationship remained between Britain and Ireland. Therefore, they held a unique value within the spiritual context of imperialism: cultural familiarity with British society yet spiritually aligned with the Catholic Church. Their schools, hospitals, and other charitable works were part of a colonial infrastructure and integral to the imperial process. Yet, these women also exhibited an independence and professional ambition which at times clashed with their role within the Catholic Church.;The experiences of these Irish women in this setting provided a different and uniquely autonomous professional participation in this missionary setting and ultimately are a crucial element in the overall story of this era.