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Remembering Sr Colombiere Kelly and Sr Breid Cunningham

  • Fr Conor Donnelly

Sr Colombiere (top) & Sr Bried

Sr Colombiere (top) & Sr Bried

Fafher Conor Donnelly recalls two legendary IBVM sisters who died this month: Sr Colombiere Kelly and Sr Breid Cunningham.

Sr Colombiere Kelly IBVM passed away this week here in Nairobi.

Shortly after the war, with a first class honours degree from University College Dublin, she set out for Kenya to wage another war, this time on ignorance, the greatest poverty.

Ten years previously her predecessors had started the first school for Catholic African women in East Africa. Up to that time there was only one school for girls in the whole of East Africa, one quarter of the continent, and that was for Protestant white girls.

Into the Unknown

Into this milieu she thrust herself becoming the principal in 1952, an Elon Musk of that time. There were Christmases when there was no food, they dodged Mau Mau bullets in the late 50s, mattresses were sacks packed with grass, the first girls unaccustomed to school, ran away, but little by little with perseverance, things went forward. The language of instruction was English as that was the language of the future.

Eventually the school grew and girls reached the standard of the Cambridge exam. When the exam papers were sent to the UK, the nuns kept a copy of the pupils' papers, in case the ship went down. Nothing was to stand in the way of the education of these girls.

Today there are many Loreto schools all over the country. They became the backbone of educational system. In 2013, the 50th anniversary of Independence, Sr Colombiere personally received an award on behalf of all Loreto for their contribution to education. The President himself, son of the founding father, was an alumnus.

Most of the prominent women in Kenyan history have come from Loreto schools, notably Wangari Maathai, who became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace" in 2004.

It is a story of development and evangelisation through education. She was principal in Limuru for 25 years. Commenting on that period she said "those were great years".

Feminists of the Hour

This was their finest. They changed culture. It can be embarrassing to hear locals speak with awe, reverence and gratitude for what they have received from their Irish teachers. For what in Ireland we got for free and did not appreciate, here they revere, education.

I calculate about one million pupils have passed through their schools. When I asked repeatedly for a figure I was told that "we have not been counting, we just wanted each girl to do her best".

Over lunch a year ago Sr Colombiere asked me my opinion of Brexit. I could not but help admire this woman, who with one foot in the next world had the other firmly placed in this one.

Her passing is a fitting start to the year in which Loreto commemorate one hundred years in Kenya. Two weeks ago a contemporary of hers also passed, Sr Breid Cunningham, she also had spent 73 years here. Between them they clocked up 146 years of service to education in East Africa. Both were products of the twenty three Loreto schools dotted all over Ireland.

Women of stature, caliber, courageous, idealistic, full of feminine genius, they have left their mark. They promoted the dignity of every human person.

LINKS

Watch Interviews with Sr Colombiere - www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmK_gPNkXkY

and

Sister Breid - www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8MB4Aadz6U


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