Holy See backed Sr Orla for top international honour

Sr Orla Treacy who received the Hugh O’Flaherty Humanitarian Award in 2017 pictured beside the statue erected in the monsignor’s memory in Killarney.
Picure: Don MacMonagle

A LORETO Order nun who was honoured with the Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty Humanitarian Award in Killarney in 2017 has now been officially recognised as an International Woman of Courage.

The US State Department has identified 10 exceptional women for their contribution to society and Sr Orla Treacy will be presented with her award by US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, at a reception in the State Department in Washington.

Sr Orla was nominated for the international award by the US Ambassador to the Holy See.

Now in its 13th year, the Secretary of State’s International Woman of Courage Award recognises women around the globe who have demonstrated exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, often at great personal risk and sacrifice.

Sr Orla at the Loreto Secondary School in Rumbek in Lakes State, South Sudan

Since 2007, the State Department has recognised more than 120 women from more than 65 different countries with US diplomatic missions overseas nominating one woman from their respective host countries before the finalists are selected and approved by senior department officials.

The Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial Society members have sent their heartfelt congratulations to Sr Orla on receiving such a wonderful international honour.

The Loreto nun, who has dedicated her life to helping those in need in South Sudan, was born 1973 and her family moved to Tralee where her father, Blaise Treacy, took up the position of Kerry County Secretary.

She was educated initially at Presentation Convent, Tralee until at the age of six when her family moved to Wicklow. Having studied at the Mater Dei Institute she subsequently taught in Cork, Letterkenny, Ballina and Crumlin and, after spending summer in India with the Loreto Sisters, at the age of 24, she decided to join the order.

She was professed in September 2005 but within a year she headed to Sudan to establish a mission in a diocese the size of Italy with just two secondary schools.

She has spent the last 13 years in Sudan which is now widely considered one of the most fragile states in the world with continuing conflict and unrest. Sr Orla became principal of Loreto Secondary School in Rumbek in Lakes State, in South Sudan which caters for over 500 boys and girls.

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