Career
An older eccleastical relative was Father Peter Martyn, who was well known as a superb preacher and died in 1645. The nuns had been banished from Dublin in November 1630 and resettled at Bethleham, parish of Kilkenny West, County Westmeath. Within a few years there were sixty members, several of whom bore tribal surnames such as Font and Skerrett.
Following a request from some citizens of Galway, twelve sisters and two novices moved there during or immediately after January 1642.
The convent was located in or near what is now Saint Augustine Street. Maria Gabriel became the first abbess of the convent.
In September, her relative Richard Óge Martyn, became Mayor of Galway. By then, Galway was at war.
During the Cromwellian occupation of Galway after 1652, the nuns were expelled from Augustine Street, as were Dominicans such as Julia Nolan.
While some made a new home across the Corrib on Oilean Altanach, many were forcibly dispersed abroad, mainly to Spain. Only in the mid-1660s, following The Restoration, were the sisters able to take in more members, including sisters who returned from Spain. Mother Gabriel was buried in the Franciscan graveyard, just outside the town walls.
Her tombstone reads:
1672.
Here lieth the Body of the R. Mother Maria Gabriel alias Helen Martin, first Abbess and religious of the poore Clares of Galway, who died the 14 of January adged 68, in religion 40. Pray for her Soule.
