THEY will he burying Christina Murphy today, the greatest journalist of her generation.
For, if the definition of a great journalist is that she is a master in her field, then Christina was a great journalist. If the definition of greatest depends on a peerless mastery, then she was clearly the greatest. No other journalist of her generation established such dominance over her field as Christina did over education.
A visitor could come to Ireland to find out what was going on in any area and not be absolutely required to speak to any single journalist to get a full picture. Give or take, most of the experts in politics, trade unionism, health or economics could give a pretty good and accurate picture of their field of expertise. Only one journalist was complete and utter sovereign and that journalist is being buried today.
When future educationalists and scholars write about the revolution in education in Ireland in the last quarter of the 20th century, one name, above those of all politicians save Donogh O'Malley, and all teachers and civil servants, will figure most eminently. It will be Christina's.
For, at a time when the complexities of choice threatened to overwhelm the parent and the child, when syllabuses were undergoing almost ceaseless revision and enlargement, and when third level education was transformed from being a largely academic recreation for the few to being a vocational preparation for the many, Christina was the one who brought elucidation to confusion and clarity to complexity.
Horribly Complex
Hard choices were being faced by the newly emerging parents of Ireland. So many of them were within sniffing distance of poverty and peasantry. Education, success, were things which had tantalised their forebears. Now, just as they reached the point where they could direct their children where generations had yearned to go, the picture became horribly complex and competitive.
Instead of the plain choices of Cork, Galway and two universities in Dublin, a bewildering variety of colleges was springing up, offering more courses with different conclusions than any parent could cope with. Life changing decisions were needed here. Help.
That help came from Christina Murphy. She offered a one woman counselling service which provided a breathtakingly comprehensive knowledge of what was on offer what points were required whether a diploma or degree resulted the relative benefits of this and that. She was master of all she surveyed. She knew education better than anybody else in Ireland, and understood, too, the need for reassurance felt by querulous parents and panic stricken students.
The was sui genuis and in her, indispensable uniqueness remained endlessly accessible to students and parents. She was the sage. And the sage is dead.
Self discipline
In an earlier generation, she could very well have been one of the founding mothers of a religious order. She certainly had the drive, the energy, the vision, the self discipline. In her later years, she came to be viewed as quite matronly and proper. This perspective obscured the truth that Christina came from the first generation which saw that a woman could be properly ambitious about herself beyond church and hearth, and in all sorts of ways Christina was truly a pioneer.
She was a liberated woman at a time when such liberation could easily have been misrepresented or misunderstood and in her liberation she was on apologetic. Because she was intellectually and morally so sure of her liberation and of what was right for her, that she was immune to such misrepresentation.
She was a feminist, of course, but not a quota feminist, not a feminist who complained about ten thousand years of oppression. She did the job, and became the best at what she did. She had an astounding capacity for application and work and good cheer she needed these qualities to an excessive degree when she was diagnosed as having a serious disease a decade ago. In the following years, her steadfastness and courage reached quite heroic proportions.
Many educationalists who, met her regularly were utterly unaware that she was battling a systemic enemy whose malignancy was made all the more unendurable by its demands for quite horrendous treatment in reply.
Never a Complaint
In addition to all the wearing and time consuming therapies which oncology demands, for the past 10 years Christina wash regularly emptied of all her blood and fresh blood pumped into her. This treatment would leave her devastated yet in those years she never uttered a word of complaint nor sought any special treatment. Sometimes she would come into the office looking grey and worn, but her workload never diminished, at her own desire.
This did not go on for a twelve month period or so but for over a decade years in which she had to be constantly vigilant that the illness did not seek fresh designs on her body, her life. And during those 10 years she remained a wonderfully attentive and dutiful mother and wife to her son Eric, her husband Dermot.
Each year for those 10 years she ran so many sections of this newspaper that it made one dizzy watching her productivity and her sheer mastery of her subject. Conferences vied with supplements for her energy, her application, her knowledge. She became indispensable, not merely to this newspaper but to the people of Ireland. People who would never read The Irish Times would depend on her for advice over vital decisions affecting their children.
She spread her wisdom wisely and generously, and it has enriched the lives of thousands of children, of young adults, of not so young adults. She was one of the giant benefactors of the Irish people, and the light she lit will warm this country and illuminate the lives of its citizens long after her name is forgotten. She was one of this country's greatest and most selfless servants.
If you seek her monument, look at the young people of Ireland.