History

In 1947 Mother Columbanus, the then Superior General of the Sisters of St Louis received  from the Bishop of Cape Coast a request for the Sisters to work in the Gold Coast, as Ghana was then known. In September 1947, to the beautiful strains of “Go ye afar…”, Sisters Joseph Mary (RIP),  Joannes (RIP), Sheila Gillespie and Bried Mulhern as well as Mother Columbanus sailed to West Africa from Ireland to the land known as the white man’s grave.

This historic event was followed in 1948 by the arrival of the first three St Louis Sisters in Nigeria, Mother Isabel (RIP), Sisters Eymard( RIP) and Augustine, who settled in Kano at the invitation of Archbishop John MaCarthy, SMA of the Archdiocese of Kaduna. They arrived on February 14, 1948.

Since 1948 the sisters have opened many foundations in Nigeria.

On the 1st of May 1960, Mother Columbanus got a request from the Archbishop of Kaduna and the bishops of Jos, Ondo, and Ibadan to establish an Institute of African Sisters to work in their respective dioceses. After due discernment, consultation and research, she agreed and the African Sisters of St Louis came into existence with the opening of Novitiates in Zonkwa and Akure, both in 1963.

As sisters were being professed, they belonged to their different dioceses, i.e. African Sisters of St Louis, Kaduna Archdiocese; African Sisters of St Louis, Ondo Diocese; African Sisters of St Louis, Kumasi Diocese. As time went on, it developed into an apparent identity crisis. This the African Sisters communicated to the Superior General through the Regional Superior. After six years of discernment, prayer, dialogue, representations, consultations, interviews and meetings, a decision was finally reached. A hard one! Bishops were slow to yield, Sisters saw the advantages and disadvantages, but Integration was favoured.

 On Pentecost Sunday in 1977 the integration of African Sisters of St Louis to the International Congregation of the Sisters of St Louis took place.