Nellie Organ1903-1908
ORGAN, NELLIE (1903–8), pious and saintly child, was born at Waterford on August 24th, 1903, the youngest of two sons and two daughters of William Organ and his wife Mary (née Aherne). William Organ had been a labourer at Portlaw, his wife’s birthplace; he joined the army at Waterford in 1897 and was transferred to Spike Island in 1905.
After Mary Organ died, from TB (January 1907), the children were placed in Catholic-run orphanages. Nellie (properly Ellen) and her elder sister, Mary, became inmates of an industrial school at Sunday’s Well, Cork, conducted by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd (May 11th, 1907). Nellie, in poor health that necessitated her spending some weeks at the district hospital and, after TB was diagnosed at the Sacred Heart Infirmary, was of an affectionate, generous nature; she was intelligent, precocious and perceived by the nuns to be exceptionally pious, to be devoted to the Infant of Prague and to understand “that God was present in the tabernacle” (a priest of the diocese of Cork). On their recommendation she received the rite of confirmation from the bishop, Thomas O’Callaghan (qv), though below the usual age (October 8th), and two months later received holy communion (December 6th). Nellie Organ died February 2nd, 1908 and was buried in St Joseph’s Cemetery but 19 months later her remains were removed to the Good Shepherd graveyard (September 8th, 1909). The exhumation revealed a corpse that was still intact. The new grave was soon visited by Catholics, especially by the blind, deaf and lame, some of whom claimed cures attributable to Nellie’s intervention with God.
In June 1909 Nellie Organ became the subject of a biographical sketch, the first of many. O'Callaghan, a former prior of San Clemente in Rome, began promoting her cause for beatification by sending to a Roman priest, Ugo Descuffi, a petition from pupils at the Good Shepherd school (November 13th, 1910) and a deposition by Good Shepherd nuns (March 30th, 1911). Locks of her hair were requested by Pope Pius X and the queen of Spain. "Little Nellie of Holy God" was considered a model for first communicants. Stories of her life were published. The deaths of Pius X (1914) and O'Callaghan (1916) hindered her cause, but nearly half a century after her death it was stated that since 1909 "the grave of little Nellie Organ has been a place of pilgrimage by the faithful" (Cotter). Organ is a variation of Horgan, common in Co Cork. Nellie is the shortest-lived person to be featured in the RIA Dictionary of Irish Biography C.J. Woods
From the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography (see dib.ie)
