In January 2024, Sheila Reilly, who had been working as a Traveller Community Health Worker in the Primary Health Care Project for almost thirty years, passed away. Sheila was a huge part of Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre. She was committed to bringing positive change for Travellers and never faltered in her dedication. She was among the women who identified Traveller health as a key area of focus and was part of the first Traveller Primary Health Care Project set up in 1994 which aimed to set up a model of Traveller participation in the promotion of health.
(additional caption information available from Pavee Point)
Sheila was committed to Traveller rights and equality and dedicated her life to ensuring Traveller women’s right to health. Sheila built up the trust and respect of Travellers and was able to help bring about major changes in the areas of health education, women’s reproductive health, child health, vaccinations and screenings. This trust was vital in the success of the All Ireland Traveller Health Study (AITHS) – the research for which was carried out by Traveller Community Health Workers all over Ireland in 2008. The AITHS is the most comprehensive analysis of Traveller health undertaken in Ireland to date, yielding an unprecedented 80% response rate amongst Travellers throughout the island of Ireland due its innovative peer-led methodological approach. The research findings are still relevant today and have been endorsed by a number of subsequent State surveys and research reports, including Census 2022 and the EU Fundamental Rights Agency.
Her colleagues and friends reflect on her and her work.
Bridgie: Sheila Reilly was a mother, a father, and a grandmother. She was very straight talking. If she had something to say she’d say it. She was a very nice person. She never liked trouble or arguing. She raised a big family on her own. Her husband died at 32. She was three months from having her youngest baby. So, she had a baby boy and she named him James after the father.
She loved working; she loved coming into Pavee Point. We used to get up at 5 in the morning. We’d get together, myself, Missie, Maggie and Sheila Reilly. We’d get the half seven bus and we’d get off at the big tree and we’d go to half-eight Mass on Church Street. She loved going to Mass, she was very religious and she was good natured. We’d come out of Mass and then we’d walk up to the Pavee Point. She loved coming in and she loved the women. She had good times with us and we had with her. She also used to love going out and doing the groundwork two days a week.
She knew Ronnie and Oonagh [Fay] very well all her life. Since Sheila died we miss her very much. We miss her at work and we miss her at home. We used to always meet at her house in the evening time for a chat, as there were no men around! A few of the women would go in chatting. We miss her very much. The Lord have mercy on her.
(Image use subject to licence)
Missie: She was a very religious woman and she loved going to Knock. Last time we went to Knock with her. Her blood sugar was going low and I knew it. There was a shop there, you go all the way through it and they do have the big long ice, whatcha call it, the nice whippy ice cream. Me and her went into the yard of the shop and we got one each and we sat down. “That took the weight off me now, Missie,” she said to me. She was a good auld thing.
Bridgie: Once, years before, she went to the Well Woman Clinic with Missie and one of the other women, she was afraid to go in. But they got her in. She found out then that she had breast cancer. But, thanks spare our lady, everything went well for her. She got the all clear and had many more years. She’d always sit down with the group and say to us “Well if only for ye women, I wouldn’t be here. It was a good job you brought me over to the Well Woman clinic. And all them young and auld women now, should get up and go to the Well Woman clinic and get checked.” Which was right because Travellers never used to go for a check up, and now they do.
Missie: She grew up all her children on her own and got them all married. She was a great woman with her grandchildren. She had eight brothers as well and they had great time for her.
Valerie: Younger people would go to Sheila too. You could go to her and talk to her.
Missie: Not only that, she’d give them [the younger people] good advice. She’d know the sort of everybody. She’d know the sort of one she could say such a thing to, and she’d know the one she could say such a thing to. She’d know your children, she’d know what they were like. If she never knew a new family, she’d know the ins and outs about them in no time. She was a good woman.
Pa Reilly – Sheila’s grandson and Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre Mental Health Co-ordinator: Sheila was a very proud woman who loved her work and the people she worked with. She prayed for everyone who was sick. Although in our community it is often said 85 years old is a good age. it doesn’t take away the hurt and pain of losing her. God rest her. She lost her daughter Kathleen, 54 years old, and her grandson Michael, 40 years old, in the 12 months preceding her passing. Her legacy lives on as in life. There is a tradition of children being named after Sheila in our family as she was a powerful woman. However, there will be only one Big Sheila.
May she rest in peace.
Photographs: Derek Speirs