‘I’m not retiring, I’m just slowing down’!

KERRY native nun Sr Teresa Nolan celebrated her Golden Jubilee of her profession at a function in the Charleville Park Hotel, Charleville Co. Cork on last Saturday night with members of her immediate family, relatives and friends.

But it did not signal her retirement from her life’s mission. As she was keen to remind everyone, ‘I’m not retiring, I’m just slowing down!’

Born in Knocknagoshel, Sr Teresa was initially a member of the teaching profession in England in the late ‘40’s but always harboured a desire to travel further afield to far-flung places like America, Canada and South Africa. The opportunity for such significant travelling did not arise until she entered the religious life and she fulfilled her travelling bug when she was asked to go to Central Africa.

She seized the chance for adventure and duly travelled to Rwanda to work in a bush mission, spending the next seven years in the country that would one day become a byword for horror.

On her return to England Sr. Teresa continued her pastoral work in Newcastle, London and Edinburgh in the UK and in Dublin and Limerick in Ireland.

In 1987, along with Sr Margaret Gaffney she was requested to open a house among the “lovely” disadvantaged people of Kilmarnock in Scotland.

She happily remained there for 28 years. Sr. Teresa is due to retire in the near future and she will spend her retirement at the convent’s London house.

Sr Teresa was the recipient of many messages of congratulations from a succession of speakers at the function to mark her Golden Jubilee, which was held in Charleville because of its central location and its proximity to Shannon and Cork airports to make it more convenient for relatives attending from all over Kerry and beyond.