A shaper of dreams

CHRISTINA MURPHY was a writer of the people, for the people. She gave shape and direction to the dreams of many parents, that their children might gain the education they themselves had missed out on.

For thousands of bright students, the complexities and injustices of the points system and the various grants schemes proved a far greater test than any mere exam. The door to third-level education had been opened, but it seemed the welcome extended was grudging.

Christina showed the way through this maze; not satisfied with that, she then flattened it. Largely through her efforts, a uniform system of entry to all the third-level colleges was adopted. Most of the petty discrimination and administrative delays that marked the grants system were swept away. When the Department of Education eventually got around to changing things, it was to Christina they turned.

She rightly saw education as the primary agent of social change and a powerful means of empowering women. Woe to any group which dared to deprive children or adults of their entitlement to education, whether they be dusty university bureaucracies. tight-fisted financial gurus or striking teachers.

Teachers seemed to hold ambivalent views about her. In latter years, they always asked me with concern about her health. Yet many resented the fact that she had taken a stand against the unions during the strikes of the 1980s.

It's probably true to say that the main impetus for Christina's career in journalism was her concern for the users of education, the students themselves. She championed parents' rights, and this inevitably ate into the strength of more established interests in education.

But it would be wrong to assume that she was in any way anti-teacher; rather, she realised that education, and the teachers who deliver it, had to change in order to stave off the kind of attacks on the system that have been seen in Britain.

Christina also practised what she preached. She didn't just talk about the empowerment of women; as an editor, she practised it. In her columns, she called for more practical training for school students - in life, she oversaw a huge work placement scheme in The Irish Times. Over the years, hundreds of Transition Year pupils gained their first glimpse of the world of work in our corridors.

MANY young journalists - myself included - got their first break from her. Some came through the placement programmes operated by the third-level others literally walked in off the street.

To all of us, Christina was a fair-minded employer, willing to take a chance on a new name and mindful of the freelancer's need for a steady stream of work. Where she could, she helped us along: one of us recalls the almost maternal pride with which she greeted him the day he "graduated" from freelance to staff status - "Good morning, staffer!"

She was loyal to us and we, in turn, were loyal to her. The team that produces E&L is more than a collection of work colleagues. Over the years, it has grown into a peculiar sort of family; we would constantly fret over the state of her health, and she would do everything she could to allay our fears.

Now, just when the danger seemed to have abated, she has been taken from us. We will, all of us, miss her badly.