Sister Anne Dolores O’Connor
Sister Anne Dolores O’Connor1921 – 2012
Born: 1st September 1921
Entered Religious Life: 6th October 1941
Died: 5th July 2012
An appreciation of Sr Anne Dolores O’Connor
On Thursday morning, the 5th July, Sr. Anne Dolores O’Connor was called to her eternal reward. Mary, daughter of John O’Connor and Nora Moriarty, was born in Brackluin, Annascaul, Co. Kerry on the 1st September, 1921. She was one of a family of four, three brothers Michael, Jack, Tommy and herself. She was educated in the Mercy Convent, Dingle and after completing Secondary School she worked in the Civil Service for two years. She entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Charity in Milltown, Dublin on 6th October, 1941 and made her religious profession on the 20th April, 1944.
Throughout her life Sr. Anne Dolores was engaged in the ministry of education in various schools in Ireland. After her Profession she spent one year in Mountjoy Street Convent in Dublin as a student. She then spent four months teaching in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary after which she returned to Mountjoy Street to teach in Kings Inn Street. On completion of her training in Carysfort as a primary teacher, she spent ten years teaching in Crumlin, Dublin 12. She then moved to Donnybrook to study for the B.A Degree in UCD and Higher Diploma in Education. For two years after her studies she taught in Lady Lane, Waterford before going to Benada, Co. Sligo, where she was appointed School Principal, a post which she held for twenty-three years. Sr. Anne Dolores was a great educator and had a special love for Mathematics and Irish
It was during her time there that the Government of the day introduced free secondary education and this led to an increase in the enrolment at the school. During her years in Benada she devoted herself to building up the school. She is fondly remembered by former staff and students and many of them were in contact with her up to the end. Even when she no longer recognized them they were faithful to writing to her and visiting with her.
She was very involved with her students and always tried to bring out the best in them. Sometimes when she perceived that some of the boys in Benada had a lot of work to do on the farm when they were at home, she would arrange extra study time for them on Saturdays and during school holidays. She loved hearing about them after they left school and they in return were faithful to remembering her.
In 1987 when the sisters were about to withdraw from Benada, she took a well deserved sabbatical at the Gonzaga University Programme in Spokane. During her time in the U.S. she had the pleasure of meeting many of her former students who had made lives for themselves on the other side of the Atlantic.
On her return to Ireland she lived in Tramore, Co. Waterford for eight years before moving to Baldoyle, Co. Dublin where she was engaged in some remedial teaching and was responsible for the convent accounts and the writing of the annals.
Finally she retired to Lakelands in Dublin where she endeared herself to all by her quick wit and droll repartee. Anne had the great gift of being able to live in the present moment and to accept her retirement gracefully and gratefully.
Annascaul, where she was born, had a very special place in Sr. Anne’s heart. She loved to speak of West Kerry, and even in her more senior moments the mention of this, her home place, would inevitably bring an energetic response.
She died peacefully in Lakelands on the 5th July, 2012. Many of her family and friends attended her funeral Mass in Star of the Sea Parish Sandymount on Saturday morning and she was buried in the Convent cemetery in Donnybrook. All will miss her cheerful greeting and her kindness.
May she rest in peace.
Sr. Joseph Helen Cunningham.
We are standing this morning on holy ground: the place where Mary Aikenhead spent the last years of her life as an invalid – a woman whose vision, courage and practical common-sense gave birth to our Congregation and to our long and graced history of service of the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. Today we are celebrating the life of Sr. Joseph Helen, a woman who cherished that charism, serving those in need with fidelity and generosity, and who also spent the last years of her life here in the Hospice.
The readings this morning are both comforting and challenging. In the Gospel Jesus speaks of himself as the Way, the Truth and the Life. He invites us to put our hope and our trust in Him and in His promise to be with us, steadily and constantly as we try each day to walk his way, to speak his truth, to live his life. It is an apt description of the life and commitment of the woman whom we are remembering here.
In her 103 years of life, Sr. Joseph Helen lived through historical and global changes that are impossible for us to imagine. She experienced seismic shifts in Church and state. She witnessed wars and famines on a world scale. Through all of those years she remained steadfastly faithful to the constant core of who she was as an RSC. She was born Dorothy Cunningham in Ballacolla in Portlaoise on 1st July 1908. She was an only girl, with one brother, and was much loved by all. Her childhood and youth reflected the calm ordinariness of children’s lives at that time. Following her degree studies she spent some months caring for her mother who was ill and then secured a job teaching in Mountjoy St. School in Dublin. Her father was not impressed! His comment on hearing of that place was: “It doesn’t sound like much of a job but you like working for the poor and you’ve always been good at it”. She remained there until she entered the Sisters of Charity on 5th October 1931.
In the first reading we are told that God gives strength to the wearied; that those who hope in Yahweh will soar like eagles, run and no grow weary, walk and never tire. That was so true of J. Helen throughout her active life. She was missioned back to Mountjoy St. after her religious profession and taught there for 12 years. Following a year’s further study in Scotland, she went to teach in a Secondary Modern school in Walthamstow in England for a year. And then came the call to be one of our three founding Sisters of the Zambian Region, or Northern Rhodesia as it then was.
In 1948 they set sail, travelling for four weeks by boat – The Athlone Castle – rail, bus and lorry before arriving in Chisekesi Siding on a dark morning on 28th October 1948. Sr. Helen kept a diary of the journey which was printed for the 50th anniversary and which gives a fascinating insight into their journey and how they coped with, what was for them, such a strange and almost ‘alien’ environment.
One can only imagine the anticipation and anxiety, the challenge and the loneliness, the wonder and the doubts that marked that journey and her first months in Zambia. It was a place and people that she came to love and cherish. She committed herself to the education of girls and brought the gift of knowledge and freedom to countless women who still remember her with gratitude and appreciation. There are many past pupils with sad hearts in Zambia at the moment – their sadness at her passing tempered only by their gratitude that she is free from the debilities of her age. And that mourning is echoed this morning among our sisters there in the Region and here in this Chapel in the sisters who lived with her and shared her life for those 30 years.
Her first 15 years in Zambia were spent in the Teacher training college run by the Jesuits and began her work in promoting the education of girls – beginning with the setting up of a girls secondary boarding school in Roma in Lusaka. Nine years later she was appointed Regional Leader and on Independence day 1978 she was conferred with the Order of Distinguished Service for 30 years of outstanding service to the people of Zambia in the fields of Education and Social work.
While she was a formidable woman in many ways, with high standards and expectations, her devotion to her religious life and her commitment to education was recognized and appreciated by all who knew her. She was a strict disciplinarian, spoke the truth without apology and demanded very high standards. At the same time her heart was compassionate and her generosity and hospitality were known and appreciated by all.
Like all of us, Helen has known suffering and joy, tears and laughter, pain and happiness, loneliness and friendship. And she had strong relationships with her friends – too numerous to mention – but exemplified in the love and devotion of Sr. Mary Bernadette Collins and Catherine Fallon. Up to the end she valued and enjoyed her relationships with her nieces, nephews and other family members and followed their lives with interest, with love and with prayer.
In 1978 she was missioned to Ireland and worked on our Constitutions. Subsequently she was appointed as local leader to our community in Crumlin before her appointment to our Provincial Leadership team and consequent arrival here in Our Lady’s Mount in 1981.
Sr. J. Helen’s commitment to Mary Aikenhead’s charism was single-minded and she never compromised on that. The second reading confirms her attitude to life: nothing outweighs the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus. It is only through Him, with Him and in Him that we can find life and happiness and fulfilment. Rooted in that conviction, she endorsed and embraced anything that served the people for whom she cared in a better, more dignified or respectful way.
She suffered in her growing debility and weakness these last years and all of us – family, community, friends and colleagues – were saddened as we watched her suffering and her struggle to cope. In spite of the wonderful, caring staff who surrounded her and the sisters and friends who were her constant support, she had difficult and dispiriting days. Yet she never gave up . Her faith in Providence was the touchstone of her life. In the midst of all her pain and letting-go she was confident that he was with her, holding her, comforting her and in the end, calling her to himself. And when that call came, she yielded her spirit to the Lord, peace-filled, calm and trusting – blest with a death that had no struggle, no pain, no fear. And perhaps I can end with some words of hers, written in the diary of which I spoke, on her arrival in Chikuni: “Now that we have reached our Promised Land we must thank God and Our Lady for our very pleasant and on the whole easy journey which we have had . . . . “ Those words echo, not only the journey to Chikuni, but her life journey, now at its end as she moves, we believe, into the fullness of the Promised land of God’s life and love.
