At midday they would have lunch but throughout the meal a nun would read passages of the Bible, and then there would be more prayers before it was time to work in the garden. Gardening was Brigid’s favourite chore, no matter how cold the weather. She would breathe in deep lungfuls of fresh air and close her eyes and pretend that she was at home in Ardcloch and not confined behind high stone walls in a convent in Dublin.

The day was spent mostly in silence, and it was only after tea – usually an egg and bread and butter – that the community was allowed supervised talk time. The postulants and novitiates shared a small common room and Brigid and her five companions would gather together, under the watchful eye of a nun, and try to murmur little snippets of information to each other about where they were from, and what they thought about this new rollercoaster experience.

The strictness of the regime was difficult to tolerate, especially for girls like Brigid who had minds of their own and were frustrated by the tyranny of it all. No wonder by nine p.m. at night when they lay in the dark, in their hard uncomfortable beds, many of them, including Brigid, cried themselves to sleep.

How will I ever stick it? Brigid wondered, knowing that when she got to the Mother House in Paris it would be even worse. The French nuns were sticklers for the rules – it was well known that life in Dublin was a doddle compared to life in the novitiate in France.

Three months later, Reverend Mother Celestine summoned Brigid to her office. A call to the Reverend Mother’s large, book-lined office was a serious matter. Was she to be chastised for some misdemeanour such as chatting to Joan in the nun’s garden when they were supposed to be meditating on the Word of God? Falling asleep at Vespers? Tearing a hole in her habit when she’d caught it on a nail in the potting shed while having a sneaky cigarette with the ancient gardener who looked after the grounds?

All her misdeeds came back to haunt her while she waited for her interview with La Grand Fromage as they irreverently called the Reverend Mother. What would the Big Cheese say to her? Had the nuns discovered that she hadn’t a true vocation, Brigid wondered nervously, sitting on the hard chair outside the door of the inner sanctum.

‘Entrez!’ The door opened and the stern, austere nun crooked a finger at Brigid, who hastily stood up and bowed.