[5][6] In 1838 five sisters arrived in Australia — the first religious women to set foot on Australian soil[citation needed] — and later opened a convent in Parramatta.
In 1892 Agnes Bernard of the Sisters of Charity started a convent and woollen mill in Foxford in County Mayo.
[16] The Sisters of Charity is one of 18 religious congregations which managed residential institutions for children investigated by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, and was party to the 2002, €128-million indemnity agreement with the Republic of Ireland State.
Following publication of the Ryan report in 2009 the Sisters of Charity offered to contribute a further €5 million towards the €1.5 billion redress costs incurred by the State involving former residents of the institutions.
As of 2017, the Sisters of Charity had contributed €2 million of their 2009 offer plus €3m in waived legal costs from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.
In 1993, to allow for the sale of laundry and convent lands for a private housing development in High Park, Dublin, a licensed exhumation of a mass grave that had been in use between the 1880-1970s took place.
[23] Senator Martin McAleese chaired an Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries.
[25] In 2013 the BBC released a special investigation, Sue Lloyd-Roberts' "Demanding justice for women and children abused by Irish nuns.
[17] In May 2013, it was announced that the new National Maternity Hospital, Dublin would be built on a site at St. Vincent's University Hospital, Elm Park, founded in 1834 by Mother Mary Aikenhead, foundress of the Religious Sisters of Charity, with the Sisters having ownership, involvement in management, and representation on the board.
[27][28] On 29 May 2017, in response to weeks of pressure and public outrage, the Sisters of Charity announced that they were ending their role in St Vincent's Healthcare Group and would not be involved in the ownership or management of the new hospital, and would gift the lands to the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group, worth some €200 million; the two sisters on the board resigned.