Those fortunate to have known Sr Majella McCarron knew that Africa was her love and that justice was her vision and goal.
The Fermanagh-born missionary spent three decades in Nigeria, where she was a respected educationalist but also stood courageously and selflessly with communities struggling against poverty and exploitation.
She was particularly associated with the plight of the Ogoni people as they sought to highlight the devastating impact of oil pollution on land and water in the Niger Delta.
Her personal friendship with the activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995, was well known and her support for the cause would make it impossible for her to return to the country during the Abacha regime.
Her impact was recognised with the Global Achievers Award for Nigeria in 2010, when she was honoured for her “visionary achievement in education, humanitarianism and environment”.
Sr Majella was born in 1939 in Enniskillen and baptised Margaret, one of five children of Mary Ann and Thomas McCarron.
Following schooling at Aughakillymaude PS, she attended the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA) Juniorate in Rostrevor, Co Down, and entered the order’s Ardfoyle Convent in Cork in 1956, receiving the name Mary Majella.
After completing a degree in science, she was sent to Nigeria in 1964 and taught in a college in Ibadan for seven years.
Unusually for the time, she requested that she be allowed to continue her studies in Africa, rather than Ireland. In 1977 she moved to the teacher training college in Lagos and from there to the University of Lagos, where she taught religious studies in the department of education until 1994.
Throughout this time Majella had come to a greater awareness of the geography, politics and economics of her land of mission, a country that had suffered turmoil, coups and military dictatorships.
She was very involved with the Africa European Faith and Justice Network and after her return to Ireland in 1994, she continued her mission to Africa from Irish soil, especially through justice advocacy and close companionship with asylum seekers.
She was a founding member of Ogoni Solidarity Ireland and the Africa Solidarity Centre in Dublin. She worked closely with Trócaire, the Jesuit Refugee Centre and many other organisations.
She was also engaged in environmental campaigns at home, especially Shell to Sea in Mayo, Love Leitrim and the Greencastle’s People’s Office, giving a voice to local environmental concerns linked to oil and gas fracking.
Sr Majella also worked as coordinator of justice, peace and integrity of creation with the Irish Missionary Union from 1995 to 2002 and as national secretary to the Pontifical Mission Society from 2002-05.
The 28 letters from Ken Saro-Wiwa she smuggled out while he was in jail, as well as his poems, video cassettes, photos and other artefacts, were given to Maynooth university in 2011, on the 16th anniversary of his death. The letters and poems were published in a book, Silence Would be Treason.
Her personal friendship with the activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995, was well known and her support for the cause would make it impossible for her to return to the country during the Abacha regime
Majella lived for 11 years in Dublin, nine in Claremorris, three in Rostrevor, and since 2018 in Ardfoyle. Everywhere, she continued with the same focus.
As a family we are proud of what she has done in our name, and above all in God’s name. She has indeed tried to live the Christian mandate to “bring forth justice to the nations” (Is 42: 1) and “deliver from the hand of the oppressor those who have been robbed” (Jer 22:3).
Sr Majella passed away peacefully on Holy Saturday, March 30, at Marymount Hospice, Cork. We thank God for the gift that she was, for her many years of dedication to God’s kingdom and her selfless devotion to justice and peace issues on behalf of his people.