The China Mission

From 1920 to 1954, hundreds of Irish men and women served as Roman Catholic missionaries working in social, pastoral, and disaster relief services during an extraordinarily turbulent but fascinating period of Chinese history.

Millions of Chinese died, and millions more were left homeless after the Yangtze River flood of 1931; Irish priests and nuns played an important role in disaster relief.

When the Japanese invaded China during the Second World War, Irish missionaries found themselves in occupied and unoccupied territory.

The communists won the civil war in 1949 and it meant there was no future for the Irish missionary priests and sisters in China.