CHRISTINA Murphy's influence extended beyond the realm of education to encompass a whole range of issues, foremost among them the professional and personal rights and needs of women.

First, as women's editor, she changed the thrust of women's page coverage towards health, women's rights and family issues. Later, when she moved into the education arena, which became her abiding professional interest until her death, she applied her belief in the equal rights of men and women to the whole system of education in this country.

"To me, she was a great egalitarian," says Caroline Walsh, features editor of The Irish Times, who shared a desk with Christina when she first joined the paper.

"The extraordinary thing about her was that Christina knew that post women's lib, if you like, both men and women had to progress together if we were going to enter into the new age, the `New Jerusalem', post-equality."

In that sense, education proved to be the natural environment for Christina's talents. "She genuinely believed enlightenment was the answer, enlightenment of men and women," says Caroline.

She lived out the quest herself working for five years in Germany and Spain in order to earn enough money to study politics in UCD, eventually spending over two decades applying what she had learned to ensure equality in education for men and women.

On one occasion, Caroline remembers, she was sent by Christina to interview a male hospital matron in Co Cavan. "Christina was so excited by this. To her, this was a stepping stone on the path to greater equality and men and women working together in the workplace as partners. Here you had a female profession, nursing, and she realised how great it was that this man had become a matron".

Christina had always been angered by inequality. "She was very liberal in her thinking but she never got snagged on anger," says Caroline. "Her generosity of spirit allowed her not to get snagged on a bitter response to things."

Christina was strongly supportive of the Women's Political Association, which at one point organised a campaign entitled "Why Not a Woman?" to put into people's minds the possibility of voting for female candidates in elections. True to form, Christina became an ardent distributor of badges and stickers for the cause, a cause that eventually reached its apogee when Mary Robinson became President, to Christina's considerable pleasure.

"She had such a sense of humour," says Caroline. "She knew men needed to be taught a few things, that they might have some daft ideas about life in some kind of Pre-Petrarchan era, but she looked at them with an affectionate spirit."

As the most senior female journalist in the paper, she represented a role model for her female colleagues, proof that women could rise to the highest levels of the profession. "She was a role model for women coming up in the workplace," says Caroline.

In 1987, when Christina became the first woman to be promoted to the senior position of assistant editor, she and 17 or 18 of her female colleagues went out to dinner in a restaurant in Dame Street, Dublin. "We all went out," remembers Caroline. "That was unusual enough, but we went out for a big, big dinner to celebrate this."

She also remembers Christina's "encouragement and affection for her younger female colleagues", how she encouraged them to strive for what they wanted to achieve both professionally and personally.

"When I had my two babies, I don't know whether I'd have coped without Christina, without her encouragement, her advice, her belief that `You can do it if you want to do it'."

This encouragement also extended to her male colleagues. She was always sympathetic to young fathers who wanted time to spend with their children because, as Caroline puts, it was "evidence to her of a changing order. In the end, she was interested in a better world for as many people as possible."

Anthea McTeirnan adds:

Christina revolutionised the workplace - at least the section of the workplace over which she presided. She oversaw the development of a prototype which others would do well to follow.

In our office, everyone's children were welcome. Welcome to be discussed - many's the parenting page feature that was spawned as we discussed our children. Welcome to visit - hardly a week went by without Eric, Christina's son, popping in, or one of our assorted bunch of assorted ages sitting down and tapping on a computer or providing us all with countless cups of water from the office dispenser.

She knew everyone's name. She would ask them about school or college or nursery, or merely enquire the name of a teddy. When my son asked who had died after I took the telephone call, I said: "Christina, you know Christina, the woman in Mummy's work who always gave you the chocolates." He knew who I meant.

We'll all miss the woman who "gave us the chocolates", who gave us a workplace that was, for us and our families, a home from home.