THE ‘FLYING’ MMM

BEECHGROVE is home to some remarkable women, members of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, and what they achieved down the years was incredible.

I was reading a story recently from almost 50 years ago about the famous ‘flying nun’ - Sister Michael Ryan.

The Chicago Tribune reported that Sister Michael was at that stage back in Drogheda, resting up, after four years in Africa.

Sr Michael was a native of Worcester, Mass, and became known as the ‘flying nun’ for her exploits in her tiny white Piper Cub plane.

She flew from village to village in Kenya and in four years clocked up over 1,000 flying hours.

But such a life came with dangers.

She recounted one, when she was flying to Kitale in Kenya and in the gathering darkness, running out of fuel and the rains gathering, she couldn’t find the runway.

‘I was ready to slump over the stick,’ the then 31-year-old stated.

But at the last minute she spotted the lights of the runway and made it down.

On a second occasion, she was flying near the Kadam mountain range on the Kenya-Ugandan border when her engine failed!

She had two passengers on board, but she managed to ‘glide’ the plane in for six miles.

‘I thought I would overshoot the airstrip but made a half circle and brought her in.’

Sr Michael became an MMM in 1959 and had the idea of using a plane to ferry doctors and supplies over the rough 37,000 sq miles of territory in Turkana, Africa.

She qualified as a pilot in Bedford, Mass.

Her main task was ferrying doctor, Sister Mary Bernard, to patients hundreds of miles apart.

What became of the ‘flying nun’ I wonder?