This research firstly focuses on a Yorkshire woman, Mary Ward (1585-1645), who founded the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loreto Sisters) in 1609. Ward believed that she was mandated by God to adopt the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus for women. Such a move openly challenged the constraints placed on women and proved too novel for the ecclesiastical authorities; in 1631 she was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of heresy and her Institute was suppressed. Despite the suppression the Institute survived. An anomaly existed whereby schools and convents of the Institute were being founded yet, because of the Papal decree, Quamvis iusto (1749), the members of Mary Ward’s Institute, were prohibited from recognising Ward as foundress. Secondly, the dissertation seeks: to explore the anomaly whereby Loreto schools were founded in Ireland (1821) yet the memory of the foundress was suppressed; to investigate the extent to which the foundation of Loreto schools in Ireland was prompted by a distinctive vision for women’s education; to examine how the memory of Mary Ward survived in Ireland, through the educational enterprise of the Loreto Sisters, with particular reference to Michael Frances Corcoran (1846-1927).