SHEILA CONROY:SHEILA CONROY, who has died aged 94, was a trade unionist, feminist and guiding light of the People's College. She was also chairwoman of the RTÉ authority at a crucial time in the station's history.
She was appointed to the authority in 1973 and served as a member for nine years, including three as chairwoman. It was a time of expansion by the national broadcaster as new radio and television channels went on air. Attention also had to be paid to Raidió na Gaeltachta, which was experiencing teething problems.
Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act was a source of much controversy. While Conroy had reservations about aspects of the measure, she was opposed to “handing over the airwaves to the bombers and murderers because they could be turned into heroes”. As chairwoman she had to be alert to any attempt to breach the ban.
She took up the position of organiser/secretary of the People’s College in 1969 at the invitation of Ruaidhrí Roberts, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu). The enthusiasm of student representatives impressed her and, working with them to revitalise the college, her efforts began to show results.
She secured extra funding, increased the number of courses for students and oversaw the college’s move to permanent premises at Parnell Square, Dublin. By the mid-1990s there were 2,000 students enrolled with 50 courses on offer, including trade union certificate and diploma courses run jointly with the Ictu. The college ran summer schools in association with the International Federation of Workers’ Educational Associations.
It was a far cry from the 1950s when the college was denounced as anti-Irish and anti-Catholic.
Born Sheila Williams in 1918, she was the daughter of a petty officer in the British Navy, from Wales. He met and married her mother while part of the British fleet was based in Bantry Bay during the first World War.
Her mother, who had been disowned by her parents because they disapproved of the marriage, died from TB when she was a baby. Her father made arrangements for Sheila to be cared for when he left Ireland, sending an allowance for her keep.
She was fostered by a family in Bantry until she was six, but never felt she belonged. “We were brought up very roughly, but what hurt was the indifference and not caring. I simply shut the whole thing out of my mind. I had to in order to survive.”
A delicate child, she was frequently ill. She was taken into care by the Sisters of Mercy in a home at Cobh. At school her favourite subject was home economics, and she had a flair for baking.
She attended secondary school at St Mary’s of the Isle in Cork for a year before her formal education ended at 14. In the years that followed she spent several spells in hospital.
Encouraged by her former home economics teacher to become a confectioner, she was in 1937 apprenticed to a small family bakery in Cork. But the outbreak of the second World War ended her hopes of a career in confectionery. Ingredients were scarce and the bakery staff were let go.
She next worked as a waitress in the Victoria Hotel, Cork. The job, involving long hours without overtime, was badly paid and staff could be sacked at the drop of a hat.
Together with some colleagues she helped organise the staff to join the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union. Pay and conditions gradually improved, and staff in other hotels in Cork joined the ITGWU.
In 1944 she moved to Dublin and found work at the Capitol Restaurant. Active in the ITGWU, she was elected shop steward. From the outset she championed the cause of equal pay for equal work, and encouraged women to be active trade unionists. She became a member of her branch committee and was in 1952 elected a delegate to the annual conference.
The previous year she had played a prominent role in support of striking colleagues at some of Dublin’s leading hotels. The “four houses dispute”, involving 1,100 workers, was one of the most protracted and bitter in the branch’s history.
In 1955 she stood for election to the ITGWU national executive council and was elected – the first woman to sit on the executive of Ireland’s biggest union and the only female among 14 men. She topped the poll in the 1958 NEC election.
Following her marriage in 1959 to John Conroy, the general president of the ITGWU, she resigned her union positions. She missed union activity and although happily married was never fully reconciled with the role of traditional housewife. Her husband died in 1969.
She served on the Commission on the Status of Women, the Commission on Adult Education, the Health Education Bureau, the Rents Tribunal and St Patrick’s Institution Visiting Committee. She was a member of the Labour Party and served as chairwoman of the National Association of Widows in Ireland.
In 1988 she was awarded an honorary fellowship by the College of Industrial Relations. In 2001, an honorary degree was conferred on her by NUI Maynooth.
Her stepdaughters Margaret Murphy and Kathleen Gormley survive her.
Sheila Conroy: born April 22nd, 1918; died May 11th, 2012