SR COLETTE DWYER:SR COLETTE Dwyer, who has died at the age of 94, was born into one of the "merchant prince" families of Cork. But she turned her back on high society to become a nun, devoting her life to education and playing a leading role in the campaign for the rights of Travellers in Ireland.
She was a member of the wealthy Dwyer family who influenced the life and times of Cork, building up an empire that employed thousands of people in companies with household names like Sunbeam Wolsey and manufacturing products ranging from knitwear and hosiery to shirts, shovels, boots and shoes.
Instead of marriage she chose the religious life, entering the Society of the Holy Child Jesus in 1938, an international community of Catholic women religious dedicated to education. Born in what became the Arbutus Lodge Hotel in the leafy suburb of Montenotte, she was christened Therese Mary but took the name Sr Colette in memory of her older sister who died when only 11 years old.
It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of her work for the Travelling people. On returning to Ireland from Britain in 1967 to take charge of the community’s school in Killiney she realised the serious need for education of Travellers. From encouraging the sisters to teach them after school at the convent, she founded St Kieran’s school for Travellers in Bray.
She was a gifted teacher and had gained a reputation as a progressive educator as headmistress of schools at Combe Bank in Kent and at Mayfield in Sussex. Witnessing the growth of housing at Sallynoggin, Co Dublin, she saw the need for secondary level education for girls and founded the Holy Child Comprehensive school there in 1970, later to become the HC Community School.
Together with Victor Bewley, Msgr Tom Feehily and Joyce Sholdice of Galway, she campaigned tirelessly in the 1970s and 1980s for services for the Travelling people. They formed the National Council of the Travelling People which endured for 20 years as the chief body for Traveller advocacy until its demise in 1990.
Determined to tackle poverty and root out discrimination, she was instrumental in setting up training centres for teenage boys and girls throughout the country. She also established St Kieran’s Enterprise Centre at the Sandyford Industrial Estate where young Travellers engaged in copper and metal work, computer imagery and archival storage. Her commitment and service to the Travelling people, led her to be invited to work at government level on their behalf and so from 1976 to 1991 she was national co-ordinator for the education of Travelling people.
Her biography, Would you ever teach us to read, Sister: Sister Colette Dwyer, her colleagues and travellers, was published by Blackwater Press in 1995.
In a tribute read at the Requiem Mass, Bishop Christy Jones of Elphin emphasised her “magnificent contribution” in the area of education and training. “She achieved access to the Department of Education and succeeded in establishing many services such as special teachers, appropriate curricula for Travelling people, transport with assistants who encouraged Travelling children to be ready for school every morning,” he said.
“This positive discrimination was essential. The education of Travellers had been neglected for decades. We always saw education as the key that would unlock the prison of poverty for the Travelling community and eradicate all forms of discrimination.
“I do believe that society through its government should celebrate Sr Colette with some form of memorial in her honour. Unlike the rest of us, she dedicated the last 20 or 30 years of her life to the cause of the Travelling people and thank God the services she pioneered are flourishing all over the country today”.
Her name appears frequently in the bibliography of reports on the educational needs of Travellers. In 1982 she was honoured in the People of the Year Awards organised by Rehab.
In 1991, president Mary Robinson presented her with a Pensioner of the Year award. They had been friends since 1980 when a group of Travellers from Bray, backed by Sr Collette and represented by then senator Robinson, took Bray Urban District Council to court because they tried to move them on.
She was a tempestuous, controversial character who believed in her own ideas. In her personal life she was deeply prayerful and had a great devotion to Our Lady.
Sr Colette Dwyer: born April 17th, 1917; died September 5th, 2011