Columban sister who became a 'doctor counsellor' to many

OBITUARY: Sr Eileen Roe, Kells and Wicklow

Sr Eileen Roe of the Columban Sisters, who died on 19 August last, grew up with her parents, Charlie and Masie, and siblings in Pottlereagh, Lisduff, Kells. She received her education in Ballinlough National School, Kells Technical School and Cathal Brugha College, Dublin.

On joining the Columban Sisters, Eileen trained as in nurse in St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. In 1965 she joined the team of sisters working in Peru. This was a time when the shanty towns around Lima were mushrooming by the month and the medical needs were great. For the first few years she and Columban doctor Sr Ita McElwain staffed a small clinic in this chaotic situation. After some years they handed the functioning unit over to the Ministry of Health. Sister Eileen was then put in charge of a TB programme in the north of the city, a hugely responsible job.

Her day started in the TB centre at 7am and ran until 2pm. She then did follow-up work walking the dusty streets and crowded hillsides to ensure that the vital regime of medicine was being followed, and arranging for the essential glass of milk a day. Sometimes it meant helping families attach separate sleeping quarters for the TB sufferer - often just a lean-to of woven bamboo to existing structures.

With the passing of years Eileen became the local 'doctor' counsellor and friend to the many who had little access to help. She was very much integrated into the surrounding communities and even the young delinquents ensured that no one did anything to harm 'Hermana Elena' her work or her friends. In the mid 1990s, Eileen moved to sprawling Canto Grande, another emerging new suburb on the east side of Lima. By now the city had expanded to six million people, most of them rural migrants. Here she trained women volunteers in the local Botiquines, centres where basic medical advice was given and medicines could be bought at affordable prices. As always she got involved in the local communities. A particularly traumatic experience for her in a life that had many challenges was the shooting dead of her companion, prison chaplain Columban Sister Joan Sawyer in a prisoner confrontation with police in 1983.

Sr Eileen returned to Ireland in 2002 and was appointed as pastoral care sister to the residents of Magheramore nursing home, a role she exercised for several years.

She was a woman of prayer and deep faith which shone through her calm and reassuring personality. Columban sisters that worked with her remember her as a joy to live with, gentle, funny and willing to pitch in wherever required. She was buried in the cemetery of the Columban Sisters in Magheramore, Co Wicklow.