17/05/2025
The biography of Sr Kate McCarthy, 'From Rebel County to Ravensbrück Camp' by Catherine Fleming, is available from Coolim Books at tinyurl.com/SrKateMcCarthy
In WW2, Cork’s sister Kate McCarthy, worked in war hospitals across Europe, helping to smuggle Allied soldiers to safety. Her role in the French resistance during WW2 would prove vitally important to the allied war effort.
She would be caught by the Gestapo in 1941, and was tortured and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. In her daily task there, of having to make belts for paratroopers, she intentionally skipped every 5th stitch meaning when the parachute cord was pulled, the soldier would free fall to his death.
In this role, it’s estimated she killed up to 40 N***s per day.
Miraculously, Sister Kate survived the camp and was on the last bus out of Ravensbruck after the camp was liberated. Kate was extremely malnourished and weighed little more than four stone. Sister Kate returned to Cork to recover and eventually became mother superior of Honan Home in Co Cork for elderly people and spent the rest of her life there.
She was awarded the Médaille de la Résistance by Charles de Gaulle and in 2014 there was a plaque unveiled in Paris in the Irish College and Sister Kate's name was added.
Sister Kate, you lived a life truly worth remembering and we salute you.
Find out more about her story on the We, The Irish - Podcast
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