Nuns who are members of the Order of St Clare's are to leave Kenmare, Co Kerry after more than 160 years.

In a letter read out to parishioners at Sunday mass and afterwards carried online, the sisters said "regrettably" they no longer had the numbers to maintain a presence.

But after 16 decades they would always carry Kenmare in their hearts.

"As a congregation, we are sorry to be bidding you farewell and we very much hope that the legacy we leave, after 16 decades among you, will be something you continue to value as a parish and community.

"We will carry Kenmare with us in our hearts and prayers always. We ask that you do the same for us. I offer you, and all your people, some words of blessing attributed to St Clare: Go raibh an Tiarna libhse i gconaí agus sibhse i gconaí le Dia. Blessings from the sisters of St. Clare."

Tributes have been flowing in after the unexpected news which has surprised many.

The nuns arrived at the invitation of Archdeacon Fr John O’Sullivan to a town impoverished after the Famine and a particularly cruel landlord and agent.

As well as education, they established a lace making industry to help lift Kenmare out of dire poverty.

Parish priest of Kenmare, Fr George Hayes, said the prevailing emotion was one of sadness.

"And shock too for a number of parishioners - they had no sense the presence of the nuns had been coming to an end," Fr Hayes said on Radio Kerry.

Although not directly involved in education for some time, "the very presence of the nuns in the town had been invaluable" and should be celebrated, he said.

They had arrived at a time of immense poverty and deprivation and their belief was if people were educated, it would set them free.

Even in relatively recent times they provided cocoa and food in the school.

"These were women of vision. They had tremendous care for the poor," Fr Hayes recalled.

They were women of great culture and they exposed the local people to art, culture and music.

The famous nun of Kenmare, Sr Mary Francis/Margaret Anna Cusack, who was born into a wealthy Protestant Anglo-Irish family took on the local landlord over his treatment of his tenants, it has also been recalled.

Kenmare lace, a needlepoint lace industry, established by the nuns took the Victorian world by storm and Queen Victoria herself had several pieces.

Nora Finnegan, of the Kenmare Lace and Design Centre, said the nuns themselves were very talented lace makers, but set about educating themselves in design and art with lecturers arriving from the Dublin and Cork schools of art. This was in order to better establish the industry.

Ms Finnegan is calling for a museum to celebrate the nuns legacy in Kenmare, a call supported by Fr Hayes.