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St John of God was born Joao Cidade in Portugal in 1495 (about the time Christopher Columbus was making his voyages of discovery to the New World, later to be deemed America) but from the age of eight years, he lived in Spain.
The Irish congregation of the St John of God community was founded in Wexford in 1871 by Bishop Thomas Furlong and Mother Visitation Clancy. Just thirty-three years later, in August 1904, following the request of Dr O’Neill, Bishop of Dromore, three members of the Order travelled to Newry to take charge of the Daisy Hill Infirmary.
Inevitably they worked too in the workhouse that was on the same grounds. Agnes Boyd of the Board of Guardians (grandmother of Russell Boyd, of Boyd’s Stores) saw to that. Sr M Malachy Kearns was appointed as nurse of Newry Workhouse at £40 per year and Sr M Ignatius Condon and Sr M Regis Nicholas as assistant nurses at a salary of £25 per year. All three were also granted an allowance of milk, potatoes and vegetables as per Workhouse rules.
Over time the total of St John of God Sisters here grew to six. They were devoted to their work, discharging their duties selflessly and tirelessly. The nuns then lived in a convent on the site of today’s doctors’ private car-park at Daisy Hill. Sr Clare Feeley who retired in August 2000 was the last of the Order to work in Daisy Hill Hospital.
The Sisters continue their chaplaincy and other duties in St John of God Hospice. St John of God Hospital was on the site of Courtenay Hill House, leased by the Sisters from Richard Henry McAreavey on September 1945 for a sum of £2000. It cost an additional £4000+ to convert the house to accommodate 22 patients, the first admitted in 1946. By 1949 the numbers admitted had rocketed to 1,949. The House had originally been purchased as a place or relaxation for the nuns working in Daisy Hill!
A new hospital eventually was built and opened in March 1967 at a cost of over £200,000. Medical, surgical and maternity services for 47 patients were provided.
The Sisters’ home is within the grounds, just a tunnel’s walk away lower on Courtenay Hill. That was the home, until the late ‘60’s, of my friends Martin and [the late] Mary McDonald (Donaghy), whose mother Oonagh was O’Hare by her own name. Long before that it was the original site for St Colman’s College.
The people of Newry can never hope to repay the debt they owe to the Sisters of St John of God for their sterling work, their dedication and the generosity and skill they displayed over the past century. Even today the Hospice is the great unifier in our midst.
May they – each and every one – be rewarded in heaven.
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History 
