Olivia Burke profile: ‘Very well liked’ business student

A former student of Loreto College Foxrock, Olivia Burke (21) had been due to begin her fourth year in college at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology in September.

President of IADT Dr Annie Doona said Ms Burke had just completed her third year of a course in entrepreneurship and management.

She had gone to Canada last year, and this year had decided to go to Berkeley where she was working in a restaurant and "was enjoying herself and making friends".

Ms Burke had been working in a restaurant in Ireland before she left for the US and was also working in a restaurant in Berkeley. She was sharing a flat with a number of the other people who were killed.

Dr Doona said there were 38 in the class, of whom just seven were women. “They were a very close knit little circle,” she said. “She was very well respected, very well liked and had been doing really well on the course. She’d completed a five-month placement recently at East Coast Radio.”

The college’s placement organiser said Ms Burke’s work experience had gone “really well” and she had brought all her business and personal skills to it.

Up to 30 students from the college went on a J1 trip each year and it was a good opportunity for them to gain life skills, Dr Doona said.

The college had a counsellor and a nurse available on the campus and Dr Doona said she believed that even though term was over, many students might wish to meet there following the tragedy.

Mark Robinson, programme director at East Coast FM, told The Irish Times he and colleagues were devastated by the news. Ms Burke had initially come in on a project related to the marketing department. “She was a lovely girl – very shy to start with, but she really grew into the East Coast FM family here.”

She had gone “over and above” what she was there to do, even to the point of volunteering to become involved with an annual charity fundraiser run by the radio station. This was all a manager and a company could ask for in someone, he said. “Nobody had a bad word to say about her, although I know that’s a cliché. She was a really, really nice young lady.” Towards the end of her placement she had been very excited and had spoken to several staff members about her trip to the US, he said.