Sister Marion 

Audio interview with Sister Marion July 2024 at her home 

Marion Kirwan 

Shiloh Pentecostal Church 

“I came in this country in 1961. I was born in Montserrat 2nd February 1940. My mum and dad, Eleanor Ryan and James Ryan had ten children. It was not an easy life for a young girl as you know in that time families were poor. But I did go to school and left at 16 years of age, and it was tough but after a few years I had an aunty in America, and she helped us out financially. Further down the line God opened the way and my siblings and parents came here. In 1961, they sent for me. I came with my son Roderick who was born in 1960. He was raised up here and he is a teacher now. So I arrived here in Dalston with a one-year-old.”

“When I came first, I wanted to go back home. It was so cold. When I came off the plane it was freezing. I want to run back. But I was wearing high heels…. On the streets in December, when I saw people, it was like smoke from a dragon’s mouth. So cold. Even when you went to wash, the water was so cold. It wasn’t like it is now and there was no hot water back then. There were no paraffin heaters, and you had to heat the water to wash any clothes. You did not have central heating or nothing. We made a film in our local church at the time about coming here and looking for a room. They say No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish.”

“I first started working here as a nurse in a Jewish maternity Hospital in the kitchen. And from the kitchen I got promoted to nursing, but I did it through the night. Looking after the babies. The Jewish hospital closed so I got a job in St Annes Hospital in Tottenham as an auxiliary nurse. As an auxiliary nurse I did not have any formal training but I it picked up through experience and from the other nurses. I did not go to college to train because I had six children. There was six but one was murdered. And I am putting it out there because I want people to know how life is. One murdered by her boyfriend, her own boyfriend. She had two young children of her own. My daughter’s name was Theresa, she died in 1988.”

“My husband and I grew up in the same village, but I met him here and married when I was 24. If we were still together it would be sixty odd years. We had five children together and he brought up my first son Roderick like he was his own. Roderick was three when we marry. But the relationship struggled, and he began to see other women and I mainly brought the children up on my own. All that time I struggled a lot. One of the nurses on duty at the hospital called Sister Betty told me they were having a crusade in Shiloh. But I said I could not go because I was tired, and I had to cook. But she convinced me to get support, and I got converted and I never looked back. It’s the fate you have and the grace you go through.”

“My daughter Theresa died in 1988. She was just 23. She was murdered by her boyfriend. I was devastated. But I got her children Nadine and Natalie, and I raised them up. One is nearly forty now and one is thirty-seven. Her boyfriend went in prison, but he only spent four and a half years. They gave him seven but then it got cut down to four and a half. I already had lawyers sort out their custody so he could not try and get the children. Now they have children of their own. One has three girls and a boy, and one has a girl and two boys. It happened just down in Cricketfield Road. I knew she had died before the police tell me. I never expected murder on my door. You hear it on the news, but not in my house. When I found out about my daughter, I already knew she had died. He stabbed her nine times. But I got her babies and brought them up.”

“My older son told me mum you raise up another generation. And now they have children. But I give God thanks and Shiloh thanks as I was there from 1980. The community from Shiloh were very loving and I could not have coped without them. Anything happen to you; they are always with you. I got a lot of support from my family and the church. I was going to build a house in Monserrate to take the two children back. But then the volcano came. Just in case when the father came out, he was going to want them. The east where I come from was washed away. My children now have a project there building houses to make the country stronger. I am not a well person but when I get up in the morning and see the morning, I thank Jesus.”