100 Sinclair Road,
Kensington, W.
May 1915.
NOTE BY PRIORESS
These simple notes, destined at first for the intimacy of our Abbey, we now publish through the intervention of Mr. Barry O’Brien to satisfy the numerous demands of friends, who, owing to the horrors of the fighting round Ypres, have shown great interest in our welfare.
Owing, also, to the numerous articles about us, appearing daily in the newspapers—and which, to say the least, are often very exaggerated—I have charged Dame M. Columban to give a detailed account of all that has befallen the Community, since the coming of the Germans to Ypres till our safe arrival at Oulton Abbey. I can therefore certify that all that is in this little book, taken from the notes which several of the nuns had kept, is perfectly true, and only a simple narrative of our own personal experiences of the War.
May this account, to which Mr. Redmond has done us the honour of writing an introduction at the request of Dame Teresa, his niece, bring us some little help towards the rebuilding of our beloved and historic monastery, which, this very year, should celebrate its 250th anniversary.
M. MAURA, O.S.B.,
Prioress.
April 1915.
INTRODUCTION
I have been asked to write an introduction to this book, but I feel that I can add little to its intense dramatic interest.
Ypres has been one of the chief centres of the terrible struggle which is now proceeding on the Continent, and it is well known that this same old Flemish town has figured again and again in the bloody contests of the past.