Waverley Cemetery, where Eileen O'Connor's parents are buried This year when I made a pilgrimage to Coogee to honour Eileen O’Connor’s legacy, I went to visit her parents’ grave in the nearby Waverley Cemetery. I took a measure of good luck dispensed by someone who warned me it wouldn’t be easy to find and a photo of the grave in case that helped. I knew legendary Australians repose there too: bush poet Henry Lawson, and Fanny Durack, the first woman to win an Olympic gold me

Eileen O’Connor was only twenty-eight years old when she died, ravaged by the tuberculosis that had converted bones in her spine to pus-filled abscesses, struggling for breath as her heart finally failed on the 10 th  of January, 1921. Even when she was alive, she was revered as a saint by many who knew her, who stored up memories and mementos of her, knowing her terrible illness would snatch her from them too soon. When she was well enough, she was carried out to sit on the

Eileen’s chapel, Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor, Coogee. This is where it all started, in a way, my journey of invitation to write a book about Eileen O’Connor. A pilgrimage. I didn’t know it then, of course. What I knew, that day back in 2018 was that I was in the presence of a saint. No doubt, no question. The air in the chapel was electric with holiness and I could feel it. Sitting alone in her chapel a few days before the anniversary of Eileen’s death in January 2026, I r

Writing authentically about a real person, especially one being investigated for canonisation, is a daunting task that requires not just mindful research and reflection, but also devotion. Devotion to truth, to a frequent examination of my motivation and objectives, and devotion to the woman at the centre of my novel. Fortunately, Eileen O’Connor inspires devotion, not just in me, but in her sisters, her contemporaries, and many of us who have come to know about her since her

Part one: attention to detail in the historical backdrop to the story To write a historical fiction novel requires two things: research – cold, hard, accurate facts; and inspiration – something personal that touches the writer’s heart and makes the story authentic.   I imagined Eileen and her friend giggling over the difficulties of a girl dressed like this managing to do anything courageous. Contemporaneous events and the details of how people lived their daily lives are so

A modern saint "The first thing people would see, when visiting after [Eileen O'Connor] died, was the telephone by her bed. They'd say,...

Sometimes, you need to see something more than once to appreciate its story. My recent visit to the Eileen O’Connor Centre in Coogee was...

I was lucky enough to make a trip to Sydney to see the new museum that commemorates Eileen O’Connor, a young woman who suffered terribly...

Where better to sit with Life, than in a graveyard? I didn’t sit, as it happened. I laid on the grass between the rows of graves and kept...

Eileen O’Connor met Father Edward McGrath when he was called in to assist her grieving family after the early death of her father, which...

When Eileen O’Connor, Australia’s saint in waiting, was born on February 19th, 1892, the world was a very different place. Antibiotics...