The Rev. Bernard O'Reilly, in his book, The Mirror of True Womanhood, noted in the 1870s that Catholic female religious were, ‘guided by the divine instinct … [they] seek each other's society to encourage each other to live godly lives … as well as to plan means for relieving the poor, providing for the needs of a church in debt, or from saving from want, temptation and ruin the youthful and destitute of their own sex’. Throughout the nineteenth century Irish middle-class women of all religious persuasions developed an enduring tradition of establishing voluntary agencies and societies which catered for the needs of the destitute of their own sex and for children. Without doubt, however, the greatest power and control over philanthropic endeavours exercised by women was that of Catholic female religious. One result of their pre-eminence in the philanthropic field is revealed by the almost complete absence, most noticeably from the 1850s onwards, of independent charitable societies organised by lay Catholic women. From the early years of the nineteenth century Catholic women's contribution to charity work became vested in religious congregations, a move which was encouraged and often initiated by both clerics and lay individuals. This obviously had important consequences for the extent to which lay women became involved in voluntary effort and it also defined the structure and limits of the societies they organised.

The majority of charitable societies founded, or managed, by lay Catholic women in the period prior to the 1850s were refuges.