Recently, The Religious Sisters of Charity’s Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy was featured in the Sunday Independent’s People & Culture section highlighting her rewarding and innovative career to date benefiting the people of Ireland. Regarded as a ‘trailblazer’ by the Sunday Independent publication, Sr. Stan has been a Religious Sister of Charity since 1958 and has had a career filled with many achievements and charitable acts.
Born on June 19, 1939, and growing up on a farm in West Kerry from a family of five, Sr. Stan had a very happy childhood. As the fourth girl, she recalls her days of living and helping on the farm. However, her mother believed that girls should be educated, and that having a profession was very important.
Sr. Stan’s background in charity work began from a young age, as she always wanted to work with the poor. However, she didn’t have an immediate desire to become a Sister or join a religious congregation. That being said, she was conscious that there were people poorer than her who couldn’t afford to go to secondary education. So, from there, her interest in working with the Sisters of Charity grew and so she decided to join the congregation.
In 1974, the Irish Government appointed Sr. Stan as the first Chair of The National Committee on Pilot Schemes to Combat Poverty. Then, Sr. Stan founded Focus Ireland in 1985 and then in 1998, the Sanctuary, going on to establish the Immigrant Council of Ireland and the Young Social Innovators in 2001.
Sr. Stan has always placed great value in education. An alumna of University College Dublin from her time attending in 1969 in Social Sciences, in 1983, Sr. Stan decided to return UCD to study as a senior research fellow and conducted research on the extent of homelessness among women. At a time when people denied the existence of homeless women in Dublin, Sr. Stan discovered 500 of them. She spent a year helping and staying with eight young homeless women and that experience had a profound effect on her.
She was at one time called as an ‘intransigent woman’ by then Minister for Welfare, Charles Haughey due to Sr. Stan’s perceived radical ideals in improving the treatment of women across Ireland, but this did not stymie Sr. Stan as she continued her work to create change through her many initiatives, pilot schemes and with the Religious Sisters of Charity.
Sr. Stan’s advocacy and work all through her life has had a tremendous positive impact on the homeless and disadvantaged. Her impressive lifelong dedication has seen her tireless devotion to assisting women in poverty, overcoming barriers and challenging institutions to advocate for those who could not do so for themselves.
The full article from the Sunday Independent is available to read here.
