St Mary's Church
East St Kilda

When Australian denominational schools were denied government funds by the 1872 Education Act, Father J F Corbett, the Parish Priest of St Mary's St Kilda, appealed to the Presentation Community of Limerick in Ireland for volunteers to staff his school.

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Seven Sisters made the journey from Limerick to Australia, departing in October 1873 and arriving on December 21, 1873. After disembarking the Sisters proceeded by carriage to St Mary's.

The foundation of the Presentation Community has as its actual date, Christmas Day 1873 - the day on which ninety-six years previously Nano Nagle had opened the first Presentation House in Cork, Ireland. One New Year's Day the first Mass was celebrated in the temporary convent at the presbytery. The sisters took their first classes in the church on January 26, 1874. There were 22 pupils. Many more were to follow.

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In Addition to the primary school, a Select School for girls was opened one month later on the balcony of the temporary convent in St Mary's presbytery. The term 'select' was used at the time to designate fee-paying.

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On December 10, 1874 the sisters left the presbytery, vacated by two priests for nearly a year, to move to their new convent on the other side of Dandenong Road.