NIAMH Bhreathnach is living testimony that people who work hard can be successful beyond both their inherent talents and their wildest dreams.
If this week's Education Bill is enacted it will, in the words of the distinguished educationalist, Prof John Coolahan, involve "the most radical overhaul of the administrative structure of first and second level education ever achieved in Ireland." And she will go down in history as the woman who brought it in when many powerful people before her had failed.
When the still surprised new Minister walked into her office in Marlborough Street four years ago, on her first day in the Dail, her thoughts were probably more about survival than making history. Until then her ambition had almost certainly been no more than to become a hard working constituency TD.
She had a hard political apprenticeship. She joined Labour at the relatively late age of 33 helped to revive a demoralised local organisation in Dun Laoghaire by relentless foot slogging; and in 1989 and 1991 was the leadership's candidate for the national vice chairwoman and chairwoman posts in bruising battles with the party's left wing.
On the other hand her immediate elevation to a ministry meant that she never served a proper parliamentary apprenticeship, learning the small political arts of being nice to people she didn't like, allowing others to take credit for small concessions, and bringing, opponents round to her viewpoint.
She has tended to by pass the unions in key policy areas. She has widened the traditional rather cosy discussions between the Department, the clerical school managers and the unions into elaborate and innovative consultations such as the National Education Convention.
She has angered them by setting up working parties on issues such as sex education and bullying without direct union representation. She has conspicuously cultivated the parents groups.
Her wide ranging consultations have led to some significant, even mould breaking, new policies. She has increased funding of primary schools by 60 per cent; systematically reduced the pupil teacher ratio; introduced the "Breaking the Cycle" initiative to tackle educational disadvantage in selected schools; brought in a three strand Leaving Cert; pushed ahead with sex and relationships education; and, of course, brought in the first comprehensive education legislation in the State's history.
There have also been some spectacular mistakes. She announced her much criticised plan to abolish undergraduate fees without Cabinet approval and then had to wait several long months for her fellow Ministers to back her; she did not listen to the Higher Education Authority's criticisms of her universities legislation, and then faced humiliation when its long list of amendments became public.
But she does learn from her mistakes, and does listen to advice from able people. Her husband, Tom Ferris, a highly intelligent senior civil servant - who is assiduous in staying out of politics but is a huge personal support - is one of them.
The Secretary of the Department of Education, Don Thornhill, would have had a big professional input into the National Education Convention. On political issues, she would heed any advice given by Dick Spring and Fergus Finlay.
A liberal and practising Catholic, she has fudged - and maybe even conceded - the big battles with the churches over control of school management boards and teacher appointments, although some believe she has been more concerned not to upset the minority sensitivities of the Church of Ireland than the Hierarchy.
She is not easy to work with. Friends talk of an element of personal insecurity which can make her abrupt and "schoolmarmish". These characteristics, when allied to her limited communications skills - she is uncomfortable on television - has meant that she has probably received less credit than she deserves for her achievements.
Her image among politicians, press and public, is of a solid, unspectacular Minister. Her often circumlocutory use of language in public (which largely disappears in one to one conversations) makes her come across as somewhat unfocused.
But she has always been entirely clear about what she wants to achieve in education. Although new ideas are not her forte, her superb organisational skills and determination have meant that most of the policies laid out in the first Fianna Fail Labour programme for government - a Labour inspired document which she still calls her personal "curriculum" - have been achieved.
Her loyalty to Dick Spring has been paid back in Government by his support for most of her reforms, sometimes in the teeth of opposition from Labour's Coalition partners. This, for example, allowed her to resist strong press from Bertie Ahern to shelve her plan to abolish undergraduate fees in 1994.
She has a huge capacity for hard work, probably unequalled in the Government.
This is allied to a passion for education, and particularly primary education, as the engine of social change. Her early experiences teaching the children of Oliver Bond Flats in Dublin's inner city convinced her that only political action would help marginalised people "walk down Dame Street into Trinity College."
She talks about her position as the first ever Labour education minister as "a real privilege". She defines her political philosophy as "equality of access starting with education". The same belief in equal access for women makes her an unqualified feminist.
She says that if her civil servant father, Brendan Breathnach, had not educated his five daughters to third level "at a time when it was neither fashionable nor wise, I wouldn't be where I am now."