Sr Cyril Mooney was honoured in both India and Ireland for her pioneering work using education to empower the poor and underprivileged in Kolkata.
Born in 1936 in Bray, Co Wicklow, she decided at the age 13 to join the Loreto order and left Ireland by boat for India in 1956.
On becoming principal of Loreto Day School in Kolkata in 1979, she opened the doors of what had been a private school for the well-off to welcome street children.
Those paying fees subsidised others to be educated for free, with accommodation also provided on site for those with no home or family.
Through the Rainbow School Program, almost half a million people have been able to improve their circumstances and the model even inspired the government to make it mandatory for private schools to admit a quarter of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Sr Cyril also began the Barefoot Teachers Training Program to train young people from the slums near Kolkata and more than 7,000 teachers have since brought primary education to more than 350,000 children who previously had no access.
She also oversaw the Bhalobasha project, which offers housing for older people in need.
Sr Cyril was awarded the Padma Shri Award, one of India’s highest civilian honours, in 2007 and in 2013 received a Distinguished Service Award from President Michael D Higgins.
The Rainbow School Program described her as “a towering personality, our mentor and most wonderful human being”.
“Her passion to reach marginalised and vulnerable children, utilising a convent school in Kolkata, was phenomenal.”
Sr Cyril Mooney died aged 86 on June 24 after a long illness and her funeral took place at St Thomas’s Church in Kolkata, where Mother Teresa was laid in state for a week before her funeral in 1997.
