Mystery of missing nuns deepens

St Patrick's Cathedral business manager Kevin Sherlock looks over the tomb of Bishop George Lenihan which lay hidden under the sanctuary where the altar sits. Picture / Greg Bowker

The riddle surrounding the remains of two missing Sisters of Mercy nuns has resurfaced as earthworks around Auckland's historic St Patrick's Cathedral draw closer to an old, unmarked cemetery.

During the mid-1800s, 10 nuns were buried in gardens on the Wyndham St side of the building which is undergoing a $12 million renovation by Fletcher Construction.

Five nuns' bodies were later shifted to Ponsonby and five were thought to remain either under the cathedral's floor or in the surrounding gardens.

But extensive subterranean tests indicated only three graves alongside Wyndham St, so the whereabouts of the other two nuns remains a mystery.

Fletcher's senior project leader Chris Edwards said one of the job's biggest surprises was uncovering the ornate brass crucifix, marble and slate-topped tomb of Bishop George Lenihan. The tomb lay hidden for decades beneath the floor under the altar. Now the bishop, encased in a cement tomb, lies just above ground level in a large excavated cavity where the altar once stood.

Cathedral business manager Kevin Sherlock said plans to modify the renovations and display the tomb's top had not yet concluded. No solution had been reached because steps to a new altar were proposed to be built over the tomb.

The puzzle about the nuns dates back to between 1854 and 1863 when all 10 nuns were buried in the gardens of their convent, which once stood alongside the cathedral.

In her book Remembering Your Mercy, St Mary's archivist Sister Marcienne Kirk noted how the remaining nuns mourned the dead as they went about their daily tasks.

"Our ... little graves are just before our eyes. We cannot go in or out our chapel without seeing them," she recorded Auckland's Sisters of Mercy founder Mother Mary Cecilia Maher writing in the 1800s.

All 10 nuns seemed destined to remain where they were buried until the church's expansionist plans 123 years ago resulted in the cemetery's inhabitants being taken across town to the Catholic stronghold of Ponsonby.

The original church built in 1848 was to be extended and the cemetery would have been disturbed by the new nave's construction. On November 21, 1883, a warrant was issued under the Cemeteries Act of 1882 to exhume all 10 nuns.

Here the mystery deepens, because for some unknown reason only five nuns were shifted to a common grave at St Mary's Convent in Ponsonby's New St where they still lie today, alongside the separate grave of Mother Mary Cecilia Maher.

But expectations that five remained in the Wyndham gardens alongside the cathedral were dashed when tests showed evidence of just three graves.

A plaque embedded on the cathedral's south transept acknowledges that five nuns were left behind: Sisters Bridget Maher, Josephine Flattery, Clare Yourelle, Veronica Cruise and Xavier Franklin.

But graves of only three have been found.

Mr Sherlock said exactly what happened to the other two nuns is an enigma. Sister Marcienne said research had not solved the mystery. Either some nuns were missed off the tombstone or more remain at the Wyndham St site than originally thought, she said.

"Sister Xavier seems to be both at St Mary's and the cathedral and Sister Teresa is not on the cathedral plaque - I can only guess that Sister Xavier's name has been used twice and Sister Teresa is still under the cathedral," she said.

An archaeological assessment of the cathedral and precinct found ground disturbances in the garden near a hidden well, although archaeologist Simon Best doubts that these are graves.

"The southern grassed area contained a number of significant anomalies recorded by both magnetometer and ground penetrating radar surveys," Mr Best found. "Some of these are interpreted by the operators as possible graves."

* On St Patrick's Day, March 17, the cathedral launches a buy-a-slate appeal to raise money for a $3.7 million renovation shortfall.

Who were they?

* Nuns who migrated here in the mid-1800s lie buried in Auckland CBD.

* Some came from St Leo's Convent at Carlow in Ireland.

* Bishop George Lenihan is buried under the cathedral's altar.

* The Benedictine ruled the diocese from 1896 to 1910.

* Bishop Lenihan Place in Manukau was named after him.