Julie Helen: My tribute to a true lady, wordsmith, an academic and excellent teacher 

I am trembling a little as I write this. I want to pay tribute to Dr Marjorie Kinsella who died recently. She was a true lady, a wordsmith, an academic and an excellent teacher and mentor to me. I hope she would like these words today. She and the Kinsella family have had an enormously positive impact on my life for many reasons, and I am so grateful to have had them all in my life.

I’ve been trying to think about when I first met Mrs Kinsella, it was undoubtedly in Coláiste Choilm around the time I started there for my secondary education. I don’t remember when I first met her. She was wife to Pat Kinsella who was principal of the school at the time.

Marjorie taught in the school long before I came along and she was still teaching during my time, and she had a lovely presence in the school. I always knew who she was and everyone showed her great respect.

I have really lovely memories of being taught by Mrs Kinsella for part of senior cycle English. 

One day, she asked me if I had heard of the poet Brendan Kennelly after reading a piece I wrote. I reached for his book, The Man Made Of Rain, from my bag and Mrs Kinsella smiled approvingly. “He’s not on the English course” she said and my reply was “he’s just purely for pleasure”. From that day, she would often pass me a poem or hand me a book open on a particular page to introduce me to something new. Officially, she wasn’t my English teacher but filling in for others, so I was always thrilled to see her at the door.

She had a way of teaching that captivated me, she sort of enveloped us in her love for the craft of English, and if you wanted to go along with her, you could. I hung on her every word but often realised she asked lots of questions and never demanded that we think in a certain way.

During fifth year in school, I couldn’t physically write and so we needed to hatch a plan as to how I would do my Leaving Cert exams. It was decided at the time that the best thing to do was to have a scribe that I would dictate my answers to. Dictating exams is a very different skill to writing yourself. The flow is different, the feeling is different. I’m a pro at it now, with a degree and masters under my belt, I’ve probably dictated at least 50 exams, but back then it was all new and I was terrified.

I didn’t think anyone understood the enormity of the task until Mrs Kinsella arrived at the door again. She had found me deliberately and once she had me on my own, explained how she had been thinking about me and I should choose all the questions that required writing a speech in the English exam. She explained how a speech should sound like it is delivered, not written, and my speech would sound all the more powerful because I was actually dictating the answer. I took her advice, of course.

It helped that she had been the founder of Coláiste Choilm Debating Club and knew I was the current president of the club so speeches were a strong point.

Pat and Marjorie had a beautiful love story outside of school, independent souls who enriched each other so hugely. They were such a great pairing with a wonderful family, and complimented each other while still being individual forces of nature. RIP Marjorie Kinsella.