In her first year, Mary commissioned Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh to complete the work of translating The Rule of St. Clare and related documents into Irish.
Mac Fhirbhisigh translated and transcribed the remaining sections (some two-thirds of the total) from English into Irish and "designed it to be a continuation of the manuscript executed by Ó Cléirigh".
Helena Concannon remarks that "It is additional proof of Mother Bonaventure's keen interest in Irish to find that she had brought this MS with her from Bethleham".
The fact that she commissioned Mac Fhirbhisigh to complete the work is a very interesting marker of the high status of the Irish language, all the more surprising in a convent twelve of whose members were of Old English stock.
The foundation document, now preserved in the Poor Clare archives in Galway, led to the house's apparent existence in 1649-50, but due to the warfare which soon arose in the county seems to have been short-lived.
In the summer of 1649, Mother Mary sent a petition to the "Mayors, Sheriffs, Free Burgesses and Commonalty of the Towne of Galway" stating that, due to excessive rent, they would be obliged to leave their current home at the end of the lease, which occurred the following May.
The convent on Oileán Ealtanach - now called Nun's Island - was "a good large and spacious house with other conveniences with the cost and charge of two hundred and odd pounds of the Sisters' portions in timber and other materials".
She left a True Chronicle written under her own hand, which she sent to this convent of Saint Clare, Galway, and a Remonstrance, a chalice, a holy curious relic, many pictures, books, ornaments, and other fine things fitting for the altar and Divine Service.