Sister Maura Clune, who died on February 28th aged 81, was one of those nuns who combined dynamism with spirituality and the religious life. Her work took her to Britain, the United States and Italy. Her monument in Ireland is Bellinter House Education and Conference Centre, Navan, Co Meath. Though she was a Clare woman, Worthing, in Sussex, was her second home.
This was where she was educated and later worked, winning the affection and respect of hundreds of her pupils.
She strongly supported bringing the church into the modern era and favoured the ordination of women. However, her energies went into her work, particularly in Worthing and Bellinter.
The context for that work was the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, the community she joined in Worthing. The aims of the community are to promote a greater understanding between the church and the Jewish people and a deeper respect between all races, traditions and minorities, and to overcome anti-Semitism and any kind of prejudice in the church and in the wider community.
In pursuit of its wider purpose, the community sees itself as promoting reconciliation between any groups who are in conflict. The community's base in the State is Bellinter House, where Sister Maura spent many years during a distinguished international career on behalf of the community.
She was born in Drominanov, Feakle, Co Clare, on November 30th, 1920, to Tim and Annie (née Healy) Clune who were farmers. A cousin was a Sister of Sion in Worthing and Maura was sent there to the school of Our Lady of Sion.
On completion of her studies she entered the novitiate in Acton Burnell in Shropshire. She was soon back in the junior school in Worthing as Sister M. Loretto, working as a class mistress. She was a very popular teacher who never lost touch with her pupils - she eventually had more than 600 pupils' names in her address book.
When she became superior of the community in Worthing she set about raising money to build a new block for the school and organised teams of parents and sisters to paint and finish off the building.
This same energy was later put into her work as Provincial in the UK when she pushed forward the development of the community there. So impressive was her work she was asked to take on the role of Provincial of the Province in the United States which she did successfully, impressing a new generation of pupils and parents, this time at Sion School in Kansas City.
But what gave her particular pleasure was the work done in Bellinter House where, apart from a period in Rome, she was based from 1974.
She had arranged the purchase by the community of the 1750s Palladian house, designed by Richard Castle for the Navan-based MP, John Preston. The house was dilapidated but she put a team of sisters to work to get it cleaned and refurbished for use as a summer school and adult education centre.
To support the project until it got on its feet, she built greenhouses and trained the sisters in horticulture and marketing. The sale of carnations and tomatoes provided the early financial underpinning for the Bellinter project.
However, she was not long in Bellinter before she was elected to the General Council of the Congregation and went to Rome, where she was based from 1975 to 1979.
Returning to Ireland in 1980 she embarked on a round of lectures and workshops and began to work with older religious, designing the very successful "From Experience to Wisdom and Wonder" programme.
She was interested in the issue and experience of ageing and was also involved with the organisation GOLD (Growing Old Living Deeper). She addressed this issue on the very practical level of buying and building accommodation in the UK for older sisters.
She also spoke on radio and television, including the Late Late Show, where she did not hide the fact that she favoured the ordination of women. While she did not campaign actively on this issue it was, perhaps, unusual for a religious of her stature to make such views known. That she held such views does not seem to have created any sort of fuss, nor did she make any fuss about them herself.
She returned to Worthing at the end of her career and was cared for in the Farncombe Road community.
She is survived by her sisters, Nancy, Brigid and Kitty, and brothers, Tim and Gerard.
Sister Maura Clune: born 1920; died, February 2002