Visiting Eileen O'Connor's Chapel, January 2026

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 remember the pulsing electricity I had experienced before, but the atmosphere is calm now, dead calm. On this day 105 years ago, Eileen, aged twenty-eight, was lying in this house, waiting to breathe her last. The stillness of her house holds that memory. It’s hot. Not sweltering as it was on the day Eileen died, but hot enough to remind me of her suffering. The windows are all open today, and as the stillness fills me, I notice I can hear the soughing of the same sea that Eileen heard, long before me, carrying on a soft breeze that rustles the leaves of the trees in her garden, and the pristine white cloth on the altar.

How many days and nights did Eileen listen to that ocean’s communion with the beach below? Feel the relief of a sea breeze on fevered skin? Smile at the squeals of faraway beach goers carried on the wings of the wind?

Sea view from Eileen's verandah

Further back still, on April 15^th, 1913, this is where the story of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor formally began, after Eileen moved here from the nearby home she had shared with her mother. The short journey was almost too much for the ill and crippled Eileen, who fell unconscious. The verandah just behind the chapel became a temporary bedroom for her as her family and her co-founder Fr Ted McGrath were afraid of the consequences if they carried her into her own room.

Eileen's home, Our Lady's Home for the Poor

And it was here, in September 1914 in her former bedroom, now filled with pews, that a miracle occurred. After being bed-bound for years, Eileen asked nurse Cissie McLaughlin to lay out some clothes for her. When she was alone, she slipped out of bed and dressed herself, shocking her visiting mother who found her bed empty and feared the worst, and her loyal band of nurses who had never seen her walk before. Here’s the bedroom door she walked through for the first time on that astonishing day, 18 months after she arrived here. A spontaneous celebration erupted in the nearby dining room.

Eileen's former bedroom door

As I contemplate this, there’s suddenly chatter and laughter, probably from that same dining room, where staff and volunteers are busy finalising celebrations for Eileen’s Day. Echoing the joy of that celebration, and the busyness of this house in Eileen’s Day, with nurses coming and going, telling Eileen about their challenges and successes with their patients, with fundraising fetes and regular garden parties for the local poor and children. And, finally, with pilgrims desperate for one last glimpse of the woman they revered as a saint in her own lifetime.

Eileen's tomb in the floor of the chapel

The walls of this holy place hold all these memories and more. The building creaks and groans as its timbers expand in the heat, its secret language that I am sure Eileen would know. And the sea whispers still.

Silent tears of emotions I can’t put into words are running down my cheeks when Sr Kerry, one of the nuns I recognise but haven’t met before, comes into the chapel. As she leaves, she gives me a copy of a beautiful poem she wrote on the centenary of Eileen’s death. She blesses me for coming so far and tells me Eileen will love that I’ve come.

I love that I’ve come too.

Information about the Eileen O’Connor Centre: https://www.ourladysnurses.org.au/the-eileen-oconnor-centre

Every Inch a Saint: A Novel about Eileen O'Connor Australia's Second Saint-in-Waiting will be out in print and Kindle on April 7, 2026. You can find it on Amazon.