[1] The order originated with the priest John Eudes, who attempted to find homes for prostitutes under the care of Catholic women.

Three Visitation nuns came to his aid temporarily, and, in 1641, a house was opened at Caen under the title of Refuge of Our Lady of Charity.

On 8 July 1855, Mary of St. Jerome Tourneux of Rennes, France, established the first Foundation in North America in Buffalo, New York, and thus began the spread of the Mission of Our Lady of Charity in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

[4] In France they had seventeen houses: one each at Caen, Saint-Brieuc, Rennes, La Rochelle, Paris, Versailles, Nantes, Lyon, Valence, Toulouse, Le Mans, Blois, Montauban, Besançon, Valognes, and two at Marseilles; in Italy, one at Loreto; and in Spain, one at Bilbao; and in Austria.

[3] The sisters came to England in 1863, building a large purpose built convent at Bartestree near Hereford and by 1910 also had houses at Waterlooville near Portsmouth, Monmouth, Southampton, and Northfield.

Believing that the work would proceed more efficiently under a central administration, in April 1835, she obtained approval from Pope Gregory XVI for the Mother-House at Angers as the home of a separate institute known as Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd.

In North America, they are located in: Hamburg & Newburgh, NY; Erie & Pittsburgh, PA; Wheeling, WV; & El Paso, TX; Carrollton, OH; Green Bay, WI; San Diego, CA; and Mexico & Canada.

Dr. Martin McAleese found the environment in the laundries to be harsh and involved physically demanding work, which produced a traumatic and lasting impact on the girls.

However, according to the vast majority of women, the ill treatment and physical punishment present in industrial schools was not reported in the laundries.

It is with sorrow and sadness that we recognise that, for many of those who spoke to the inquiry, their time in a refuge is associated with anxiety, distress, loneliness, isolation, pain and confusion and much more.

[10] On 26 September 2007, J. Gaston Hebert, diocesan administrator, announced that six of the ten sisters at the Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge had been formally excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church for their association with a Canadian group called the Army of Mary, which the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had defined as a heretical group.