Eileen of Enright’s Bridge

A Lyre woman’s story.

Fr Pat Moore PP

When Eileen Enright left Lyreacrompane National School in 1959, she left empowered by her teachers, Mrs Sheehy and Master Hannifin to take on anything. It meant cycling the untarred road down to Smearlagh bridge and then into Listowel for secondary schooling. She knew every pot hole on that road. Then after a while in their Convent in Ardfert she was invited to California by the Aubum Mercy Sisters. It was and is mission territory. There she studied in the San Francisco College for Women (now the University of San Francisco) and trained to be a teacher. A large part of her life was now spent teaching and being principal for twelve years. Then she was associated Superintendent for schools in Sacramento before becoming Chancellor of the Diocese of Sacramento. A first for a woman!

While there she helped out in bringing “Cristo Rey” to Sacramento. As you may know there is a lot of wealth and a lot of poverty in America. We do not see much about poverty but it is there and real and growing. Cristo Rey is a school project started in Chicago and is now in 24 cities in the U.S. It gives children from deprived backgrounds a chance to go to a high school with a difference. Four days they are at school but on one day a week they are bussed out into a business place to work. Before they go they are trained in hygene, dress, and office work. These are not common sense for people if you were not reared with them. Small class sizes and this experience mean that they leave to be employable. Furthermore each pupil gets a sense of worth, an attitude that makes them want to get back on the horse after a knock. They describe the school as giving them a feeling of family though the lessons are often hard.

Eileen Enright is President of Cristos Rey in Sacramento. She co-ordinates all the good work going on and has a forensic approach to the school. She knows all the staff and 250 students personally, their story, she knows everything from buying and maintaining a bus to the price of bread. She has to balance the budget but in a way that has put people first. I was lucky enough to experience this at first hand and what amazed me was how well known and respected she is for her work in the States and how much has been written up on it.

Inspired by growing up in Lyre a recent article on Eileen shows how much she draws on her early education here among us. “Moltar í agus sin in ar dtost” as they say in Irish (she is praised even when we are silent). I toured Cristo Rey with Eileen, she starts work at 6.30am and she has energy for the rest of the day. She told me:- “It is rewarding to be at Cristo Rey every day. I am humbled by the students and their families. This isn’t work – it’s a privilege”.

Public Auction

Bungalow and plot of land (one rood and 20 perches) By Bord na Mona at Glountain January 16 1960

The house in the above notice which appeared in the Kerrymay fifty years ago became the home of John Joe Nolan. John Joe Sheehy described him in a verse.

Down in Glountain there is an old Defender He has so many names I can hardly remember They call him the “Council” and John Joe Sean And He’s known as the “Bord” all over Glountain According to John “Davy” Nolan he was called the “Bord” after a comment he made about a priest who had intervened in a strike that took place in Bord Na Mona.

“Council” wasn’t convinced of the impartiality of the priest and concluded that “The priest and the Bord are all the one”.

Sr Eileen Enright (on left) with her sister Joan Roche

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