St Margaret of Scotland Hospice: 200th anniversary of the Religious Sisters of Charity

In fact this year marks a double celebration: the anniversary of the hospice's founding in Clydebank and 200 years since the setting up of the Religious Sisters of Charity in Dublin.

Mark Aikenhead, a young woman with an extraordinary vision, was the founder. Born in 1787 in Cork, she was in her teens when she went to Dublin to visit a friend and witnessed first-hand the unemployment and terrible poverty affecting people in the city.

"She spent a bit of time with her friend visiting the poor and the sick. Charity seemed to be a significant element to her life from quite an early age. While she was in Dublin she recognised a sense of calling that something had to be done to look after what she termed the 'sick poor'," says accountant Edward McGuigan, vice-chairman of the hospice's board of directors.

"Mary looked at some religious orders but at that time most of them for women were enclosed. So people weren't actually out there working in the community.

"She had a look around and couldn't see anything that fitted what she wanted to do but at the same time Archbishop Murray in Dublin became instrumental in founding the congregation of the Sisters of Charity. Mary slotted quite well into his thought process."

The 28-year-old was soon appointed superior general of the Religious Sisters of Charity, as Edward describes her: "A kind of one-woman operation" which shows how single-minded she was in her ambitions.

With just over 100 nuns in Ireland, all of whom lived as enclosed contemplatives behind convent walls, Mary applied to Rome for permission for her sisters to take a fourth vow of service for the poor, enabling then to visit poor people in their own homes.

Over the next 15 years in Dublin she started to mobilise the local community and extend the charitable work she thought needed to be done.

This was at a time when there were shocking levels of deprivation in the city, leading to the history of the famine and the exodus of migrants to the New World as well as across the Irish Sea to England and Scotland.

"At that point the primary spheres of activity for the order were the foundation of hospitals and very specifically 'rescuing the sick and the dying'," says Edward.

"It was the language of the time but that would have meant been caring for people who had nobody else to look after them.

"She became quite ill about 1832 and that seems to have come on simply due to the level of work – this one-woman quest. Even at that point, through the ill health, which subsequently led to her death more than 20 years later, she decided the sisters would start to think about spreading to other continents."

They voyaged to France and as far afield as Australia, unbelievably forward thinking when convicts were still being dispatched to Botany Bay and little was known about the indigenous population.

"Now Australia is a huge province for the sisters - from tiny seeds a garden has blossomed," comments Edward.

And today there are more than 400 Religious Sisters of Charity in Ireland, England, Scotland, Zambia, the US, Nigeria and Malawi as well as 145 in Australia.

By the time Mary died in 1858 at the age of 71, the congregation had flourished, founding hospitals that were places for people to go when they were dying. In effect the nuns were providing hospice care before the term had been invented.

"The sisters are very low key and often people have no idea they are there or the level or value of the work they have done," adds Edward.

"For a group of Irish nuns, their foresight is quite staggering. They are builders, architects, surveyors, accountants, they just have this fantastic capacity for running with something and maximising what they do with nothing.

"They have a very persuasive way of getting people to buy in to what they do. It's a struggle to raise the money they need but they get it. They're incredibly resilient."

Now to mark the work done by Mary Aikenhead all those years ago, she has been declared Venerable by Pope Francis, the second of four steps in the Catholic Church's canonisation process.

Sister Anne Delaney, 82, has spent more than 60 years in the order, entering the Religious Sisters of Charity on November 9, 1953.

A young girl from Tipperary, she remembers having to decide what to do after leaving school and her certainty of the path she wanted to follow.

"I knew sisters and in time your mind tells you. I was happy enough. After interviews and advice, as much as you could gather, I was happy with the decision I made," she says.

Pastoral work and nursing training followed in Dublin and England in the ensuing years. She remembers fondly the offer of a study break in 1978 and the opportunity to be a student at Oxford, immersing herself in theology, social administration and pastoral care.

She spent a period of time at St Andrew's Hospice in Airdrie, where her talent for art was put to good use to raise funds.

"I liked that very much. It was something to help the hospice," she says. "I did all the mediums – watercolour, oils and acrylics. I painted the football star Henrik Larsson and that made a big splash, it was a huge painting.

"That was very welcomed and did well. He was very nice, a lot of players visit the hospice."

She has been at Clydebank since October last year, receiving treatment in the hospice herself after falling seriously ill.

As well as arranging flowers in the hospice, taking part and helping out at art classes have had a dramatic impact on her recovery.

She quotes landscape watercolour artist Ashley Jackson to describe the effect painting has had on her life: "Painting isn't about paint and brushes. It is about borrowing directly from the soul of nature, incorporating that extra ingredient into your painting which gives it a life of its own. You will know when you have achieved this and from that moment on you can call yourself an artist."

Sister Anne has witnessed considerable changes to the order over the decades, from the work carried out by the sisters to the simple matters of the way they dress.

"I was a bit conservative, I was slow to shed the old dress," she says. "There were big changes and changes within our lives: more openness and freedom, more relaxation, being allowed to do courses and develop yourself."

Sisters are sent to work where there is need and in the the modern world that has meant in some parts of the UK moving from nursing to dealing with the victims of trafficking.

"It's very private work and there are safe houses. Nothing is said about it, there is no publicity. It is the slavery of today, it's dreadful," she says.

"Mary Aikenhead had a vision and the courage to do the work she did. I believe it's fate, I trust that there is a future and it will evolve."

Visit http://www.smh.org.uk or to donate www.justgiving.com/smh/donate