Frances Ball was an Irish woman, born in 1794 when Catholicism was still suppressed in Ireland. She was therefore sent to England at the age of nine to study at the Bar Convent in York, which was an IBVM
school.
Frances returned home to Dublin at the age of sixteen but was keen to devote her life to the education of
girls. With the support of the Bishop of Dublin, who hoped that she would set up an IBVM community in Dublin, Frances returned to York to join the Sisters at the Bar Convent, where she took the religious name of Teresa. Mother Teresa Ball returned to Dublin in 1823 to start her work of setting up an Irish branch of the Institute, which she called Loreto after the shrine in Italy dedicated to the Holy
Family.
Rathfarnham
