NORA ROBERTS:NORA ROBERTS, who has died at the age of 91, was an artist and educationalist who played an influential role in the development of the national Texaco children's art competition. She was also well known in labour and transport history circles, along with her late husband, former Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) general secretary, Ruaidhrí Roberts.
Born in Limerick, she was the daughter of Maud Kearney who had developed a very successful lace business, and whose own family, the Hodkinsons, had specialised in ecclesiastical decorations. The Kearneys moved to Dalkey in south Dublin, where Nora met her future husband, Ruaidhrí at a very young age.
Nora studied art, taking a diploma at the National College of Art and Design and pursuing a teaching career in the subject.
She taught at Drogheda Grammar School and at Glengara Park School, which subsequently merged with three other schools to become Rathdown in Glenageary, Co Dublin. During the second World War, she applied her skills in technical drawing to a post in Belfast. She spent a year in Belfast working in the Short's aircraft factory as an aircraft component checker.
She married Ruaidhrí Roberts in 1943, and lived for a short time in Glencree, Co Wicklow, where her husband was working for Bord na Móna. The couple experienced heartbreak early on in their marriage when their only child, Hugh, contracted an illness and died at the age of only four months in hospital in 1944.
Maud Kearney had bought each of her children a house in Clarinda Park in Dún Laoghaire, and it was there that Nora started her own art school in the basement of number 8. She also worked with the late Lady Valerie Goulding, co-founder of the Central Remedial Clinic for treatment of people with physical disability, and provided art therapy classes at the clinic which opened in 1951.
She loved children, and was one of the first adjudicators of the Caltex children's art contest, which subsequently became known as the Texaco children's art competition. Initiated in 1955, the first contest invited children to illustrate the slogan Keep it Quiet, which was being used to advertise Havoline motor oil.
Nora had a tremendous spirit of adventure, and travelled with Ruaidhrí through the former Soviet Union and Scandinavia. The couple also set up the People's College in Dublin in 1948, to provide continuing education for employees with support from the trade union movement. Her husband had been impressed by the workers' education associations, set up in Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, and felt that something similar could be established here.
During her time teaching in Drogheda Grammar School, Nora provided a home from home for two Icelandic boarders. She told the parents of Una and Margaret Svane that she would be happy for their daughters to stay during school holidays if she could visit Iceland. One of her last long trips was to Iceland at the age of 88.
She and Ruaidhrí were almost inseparable and spent their holidays in Fanad, Co Donegal and, latterly, in a cottage on the Little Sugarloaf which looked out onto the larger Sugarloaf mountain in Co Wicklow. It was here that she hosted Easter egg hunts and other activities for children and their adults. She maintained a keen interest in exploration, astronomy, geology, sailing and was one of the founders of the Howth Transport Museum, rolling up her sleeves to work on restoring some of the stock. She was an active member of the Dún Laoghaire Historical Society and Dún Laoghaire Soropotimists and the Irish Labour History Society, and maintained her many and varied interests, shared by an eclectic group of friends, long after her husband's death. She celebrated her 90th birthday, surrounded by friends and family, in the Bray Head Hotel in Co Wicklow.
Nora Roberts was pre-deceased by her husband, Ruaidhrí, and son, Hugh Emmanuel. She is survived by nephews Randal, Adrian, George, nieces, Deirdre, Grania, Geraldine, Fionnuala and Deirdre (Hammond).
Nora Roberts: born June 3rd, 1918; died, March 10th, 2010