Edel Quinn

The Venerable Edel Mary Quinn (September 14, 1907 - May 12, 1944) was an Irish lay missionary. Born in Kanturk, County Cork, Edel was the eldest child of bank official Charles Quinn and Louisa Burke Browne of County Clare. She was a great-granddaughter of William Quinn, a native of Tyrone who settled in Tuam to build St. Mary's Cathedral. Edel Quinn felt a call to religious life at a young age. She wished to join the Poor Clares but was prevented by advanced tuberculosis. After spending eighteen months in a sanatorium, her condition unchanged, she decided to become active in the Legion of Mary, which she joined in Dublin at age 20. She gave herself completely to its work in the form of helping the poor in the slums of Dublin.

At the source of all Edel's activity was her deep union with God, sustained by constant prayer. The Eucharist was the centre of her life: "What a desolation life would be without the Eucharist", she wrote. Her devotion to Mary was marked by childlike trust and utter generosity. She said she could never refuse Our Lady anything she thought she wanted. Mary's rosary seemed to be always in her hand.

In 1936, at age 29 and dying of tuberculosis, Quinn became a Legion of Mary Envoy, a very active missionary to East and Central Africa, departing in December 1936 for Mombasa. Edel settled in Nairobi having been told by Bishop Heffernan that this was the most convenient base for her work. By the outbreack of World War II, she was working as far off as Dar es Salaam and Mauritius. In 1941, she was admitted to a sanatorium near Johannesburg.

Edel died in Nairobi on May 12, 1944. In 1957 the Archbishop of Nairobi initiated the process for her Beatification and many witnesses were examined, monoly in Africa and Ireland. Their evidence, published by the Holy See, points not only to outstanding holiness but to holiness in its most attractive form. The words love, joy, peace appear in almost every testimony. The Vicar General of Mauritius was speaking for many when he said "I want to lay special emphasis on her constant joy; she was always smiling; she never complained; she was always at people's disposal, never stinting her time".

On December 15, 1994 Pope John Paul II declared Edel Quinn "Venerable". One miracle attributed to her intercession is still required for her Beatification.