Margaret Aylward

Margaret Louisa Aylward (1810-1889) was an Irish Catholic nun, philanthropist, and founder of the Sisters of the Holy Faith.

Aylward again attempted to join a religious order in 1846 when she entered the Ursuline noviciate in Waterford, however she left after two months.

[3] By 1851, Aylward had moved to Dublin where she was active in re-energising the Ladies' Association of St Vincent de Paul.

'[3] There was a growth in religious orders for women in Ireland from the early nineteenth century due to a relaxing of anti-Catholic Penal Laws.

[3] Aylward was arrested in 1860 for 'failing to produce a child named Mary Matthews, who had been taken away and concealed from her parents for the purpose of being brought up in the Roman Catholic faith'.

Historian Margaret Helen Preston argues that Aylward was unusual for the time that she lived in because she did not believe that poverty resulted from sin.