Description:
This is the story of Lena Deevy, a Little Sister of the Assumption and a faith-inspired Irishwoman of deep commitment to social justice and compassion for the disenfranchised. Through her community development work in Ballymun, Dublin to her subsequent leadership of the Irish Immigration Center (IIC) in Boston, Massachusetts, she developed a style of leadership that empowered others to lead and to look beyond the narrow confines of race, class, and ethnicity.
Instability and uncertainty often lead to division and discrimination, but the IIC in Boston testified that an alternative is possible when pursued with intentionality by a dedicated leader. For more than twenty years, Sister Lena Deevy was that leader and developed the IIC from a volunteer group supporting Irish immigrants to a large professional immigrant services organization that worked with immigrants from around the world, and remained animated by its anti-racist, multicultural convictions.
Lena's commitment to justice and compassion stayed with her on her return to Ballymun and a changed Ireland in 2014.
This book is Lena's story and the stories of those who helped along the way--from Ireland to Boston and back--as told to a writer, historian, and community organizer.
Drawing on her life experience, liberation theology, and a deep commitment to all, she brought people together, worked collectively, and charted a different path forward that is needed today more than ever.
Brief description: Chandra Manning earned her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College, M.Phil from University College Galway, and Ph.D. from Harvard University. She teaches U.S. history at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and is the author of "What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War" (2007) and "Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War" (2016). She has also worked as a National Park Service Ranger and was a volunteer at the Irish Immigration Center in the 1990s and early 2000s. Several of her closest friends continue to be fellow volunteers she met at the IIC.
Review Quotes:
As President of Ireland, I kept a lamp burning in the kitchen window of Áras an Uachtaráin in honor of Irish emigrants at a time when so many were migrants around the world. On the other side of the Atlantic, Sister Lena Deevy and the Irish Immigration Center of Boston magnified that small beam of light into a beacon of welcome and a torch for justice for newcomers, no matter where they came from. Rooted in an expansive version of Irishness, which linked Irish people and their descendants to all who suffered famine, deprivation, persecution, or constrained opportunity, Lena grew the IIC into an untiring immigrant services organization dedicated to the dignity of all and against bigotry and racism. In our time of increasing global migration, we need its example more than ever.
- Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Chair of The Elders
Under Sister Lena Deevy's leadership, the IIC transformed from a volunteer hotline into a groundbreaking, immigrant-led organization. It provided essential services while promoting cross-cultural understanding and anti-racism. Lena believed that building a community involves reaching out rather than turning inward. Her story is one of determination, conviction, courage, and deep compassion, demonstrating how one woman's vision and unwavering belief in the shared dignity of all people can turn a small group effort into a powerful force for justice and change.
-Gisele M. Michel, Managing Director, Icatalyst Consulting
When the buses didn't run, when the shops weren't built, when the bowling alley was still a dream, Sr Lena was the one who gave Ballymun its pulse. Her work was invisible in the way blood is invisible-it simply kept life going. She shaped parents who raised brilliant children, and she left a mark as indelible as any carved in stone. If the Seven Towers honour our patriots, Ballymun knows an eighth name should be there: Sister Lena, a true heroine.
-Joe Duffy, broadcaster and writer