100 years of the Irish in Kenya
2016 marked the 100th anniversary of the ‘1916 Rising’ in
Ireland, a milestone on the country’s road to achieving independence in 1922.
To commemorate that event, the Embassy of Ireland in Kenya organised an
exhibition chronicling the presence and contribution of Irish people in Kenya
since 1916. This article draws on the themes of that exhibition. (Kenya Past
and Present, a publication of the Kenya Museum Society, which continues to do a sterling job)
The Irish have a long tradition of travel and emigration.
Today, an estimated 70 million people worldwide claim Irish ancestry and
heritage — among them former US President, Barack Obama, whose other heritage
is Kenyan. The Irish came to Kenya as entrepreneurs, teachers, doctors,
coaches, aviators, farming and motoring pioneers, workers in nongovernmental
organisations, and especially as missionaries, both religious and lay. The
Kenya they encountered mirrored in many ways their own experience of home: agricultural,
traditional, poor in material wealth, but rich in culture. They stayed to
become an integral part of the development of a newly emerging African state
which, like the country of their birth, had a strong desire for independence.
This history of the Irish in Kenya since 1916 outlines the
stories of some of the Irish who travelled from a small island nation on the
edge of Europe to contribute to and be a strong presence in the development of
present-day Kenya. Coffee and the Holy Ghost Fathers Irish missionaries grew
the first commercially viable coffee plants in Kenya and launched its coffee
industry. In 1899 the Holy Ghost Fathers (today known as the Spiritans) from
Ireland and France arrived in present-day Nairobi and settled in the then
Kikuyuland, now Muthangari. They named their mission St Austin’s. One hundred
coffee seedlings arrived with them, the plan being to grow coffee commercially
to finance the mission. An Irish Spiritan, Father Tom Burke, was head of the
mission. He was a young energetic Limerick man from a rural background. In
1905, Fathers Burke and Hemery tasted the first commercially viable coffee in
Kenya. In 1906, the coffee appeared in a Nairobi shop and was soon being
exported.
The coffee, an Arabica mocha blend, was quickly recognised as
a commercial crop suited to the Kenyan climate. Farmers who had failed with
other commercial crops set up large coffee plantations using seed from St
Austin’s. Karen Blixen bought some of her seedlings from the mission. It was
almost fifty years before a competitor would rival the mission plants. Motoring
pioneer John Joseph Hughes was a visionary who contributed to farming, business
and industry in Kenya in the first half of the 20th century. Hughes came to
Kenya in 1920 as an advisor for the world’s largest buyer of flax. He quickly
realised that a mixed farming policy, rather than monoculture, would suit local
conditions better. He moved to the Agricultural Department of the government to
develop this policy successfully. When his two-year contract ended Hughes
joined forces with another Irishman, Tom O’Shea, a general outfitter in
Eldoret, and travelled through western Kenya supplying farmers with goods.
In the 1920s Hughes secured the rights to import Model T
Fords into Kenya. In this era of the Great Depression, he devised a modified
form of barter whereby Model T Fords were sold in exchange for crops. It was a
resounding success. In 1928 he set up Hughes Ltd. in Nakuru, which soon became
the largest motor company in the country, capturing 52% of the motor market in
Kenya. J.J. Hughes had a deep sense of responsibility towards his adopted
country and set up a fully equipped training school for Kenyan mechanics.
After independence he became the Republic of Ireland’s first
Honorary Consul to Kenya. In the 1920s Hughes secured the rights to import
Model T Fords into Kenya. In this era of the Great Depression he devised a
modified form of barter whereby Model T Fords were sold in exchange for crops.
It was a resounding success. In 1928 he set up Hughes Ltd. in Nakuru, which
soon became the largest motor company in the country, capturing 52% of the
motor market in Kenya. J.J. Hughes had a deep sense of responsibility towards
his adopted country and set up a fully equipped training school for Kenyan
mechanics. The Irish were central to the
birth of aviation in Kenya. A Cork man, John Evans Carberry, formerly the 10th
Baron Carbery [sic], came to Kenya in 1920 and brought his passion for flying
with him. In 1928 he imported the country’s first registered aeroplane,
christened ‘Miss Kenya’. Seeing the commercial potential in aviation he
registered a new company, Kenya Aircraft Company Ltd. His second plane, ‘Miss
Africa’, made the first civilian flight from Kenya to Croydon, England. Mrs
Florence Wilson, a passenger on that flight, established Wilson Airport on her
return. Carberry loaned his custom-built Percival Vega Gull to Beryl Markham,
the first woman to fly solo east-west across the Atlantic in 1936. He also
financed that flight. It is reported that Beryl Markham undertook the flight in
response to Carberry's challenge.
Kenya Airways was founded in 1977 with technical and
management support from Aer Lingus, Ireland’s national airline. Dublin man,
Brendan Donohoe, seconded from Aer Lingus, was finance director of Kenya
Airways in Nairobi in the 1990s. In 1994 he became general manager and part
owner of Air East Africa, a successful cargo operation in the east and central
African regions.
Retired Irish Honorary Consul, Joe O’Brien, is an engineer
and licensed aerobatic flight instructor. He has trained people from all walks
of life in aerobatic flying, from missionaries to the chair of the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). From 1998 Joe was a
volunteer aerobatics instructor for the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). Over 14
years he trained eight pilots for the KWS Airwing, most of whom went on to
become professional pilots. Joe O’Brien, in his eighties now, is still active as
an engineer.
The Kenya Irish Society Originally the East African Irish
Society, the Kenya Irish Society was co-founded in 1924 by Dublin man, Edward
Keane Figgis. Figgis was a partner in the Nairobi-based Daly and Figgis law
firm, the oldest law practice in Kenya and today known as Daly and Inamdar
Advocates. In 1972, reflecting political changes in East Africa, the society
became the Kenya Irish Society (KIS).
Ruth Hogan, a past president of the society, wrote a history
of the many members and past presidents who contributed greatly to their
adopted country. Among these: • Dublin man, John Clark Stronach, was the
engineer for the building of Nairobi State House in the 1920s and became the
country’s Director of Public Works in the 1940s. • Mayo man, Sir Joseph
Sheridan, was Chief Justice in the 1930s and presided over the infamous
Broughton Trial in 1941, where Sir Jock Delves Broughton was controversially
acquitted of the murder of Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll. • Another Dublin
man, Archibald Thomas Ayres Ritchie, a graduate zoologist, arrived in the
country after World War I and was Kenya’s Chief Game Warden from 1923 until
1950. • Sir Joseph Aloysius Byrne was the first Irishman to be appointed
Governor of Kenya in 1931. He was a keen golfer, and the Sir Joseph Byrne Cup
was awarded at the Royal Nairobi Golf Club for many years. • Mr Justice Bourke,
later Sir Paget Bourke, was a senior Kenyan judge in the early 1950s. He was
also an uncle to the first female president of the Republic of Ireland, Mary Robinson.
• Cork man, Alfred (Fred) Dalton, was appointed first general manager of the
newly formed East African Railways and Harbours Administration in 1948, a post
he held until his retirement in 1953. He went on to become chairman of the
Maize and Produce Control Board and also sat on the local civil service
selection board.
Government and administration Prominent in the East Africa
Power and Lighting Company (EAPL), Wexford man, Paddy Deacon, came to Kenya in
the late 1940s. Paddy was head of personnel and management for EAPL. He
recruited and trained Kenyan employees and established a residential training
school. He ran management training courses for organisations such as Securicor,
Mumias Sugar, KCB Bank, John Mowlem & Co. and the Nation Media Group. He
was a governor of the Kenya Polytechnic and, together with Shell and British
American Tobacco, founded the Federation of Kenya Employers. Among other
things, he was also a member of the Industrial Court and served on the Board of
Trustees of Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital for 27 years. In recognition of his
contribution to his adopted country, then President Moi appointed him a Member
of the Order of the Burning Spear in 1999.
St Patrick’s High School, Iten, was founded by Irish
Patrician Bothers in 1961. It became the third secondary school for Kenyan boys
north of Naivasha. In 1989, the school was one of the first in Kenya to start
using computers. It is widely regarded as the best distance-running high school
in the world. Coaching Kenya's champions The last two world recordholders of
the 800 metres — Wilson Kipketer and
David Rudisha — were coached by former St Patrick’s High School principal,
Brother Colm O’Connell. A Cork man, Brother Colm came to Kenya in 1976 for a
few months and has stayed 40 years. Initially with no formal training in
athletics, he has coached almost 30 Kenyan World and Olympic medallists. He is
equally encouraging of girls and is credited with starting the influx of female
athletes to Iten in the 1990s. The small high-altitude town in the Rift Valley
is now a major centre of athletic excellence. Athletes from Kenya and around
the globe live and train there. Today, Brother Colm, the ‘godfather of Kenyan
running’, is still training champions. There are an estimated 120 athletics
training camps in Kenya basing their approach on Brother Colm’s style of
coaching.
Missionaries By far the greatest number of Irish people to
come to Kenya were missionaries, both lay and religious. Irish missionaries
first arrived in the mid-19th century and passed on not only the gospel message
but also many skills as a means of contributing to the social, technical and
economic advancement of the Kenyans among whom they lived. Many hundreds came
and stayed to work in a wide variety of pastoral and development activities,
particularly in the areas of health care and education. They worked in every
(then) province in Kenya. Forty Catholic missionary congregations and orders,
either founded in Ireland or with Irish members, have worked, and are still
working, in Kenya. Their contribution is manifest today in institutions such as
the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, which was Nairobi’s first Catholic interracial
hospital. The Church of Ireland, through the Church Missionary Society of
Ireland (CMSI), and earlier as part of the Church Mission Society, has been
present in Kenya since the mid-19th century. Irish Presbyterian missionaries,
through Presbyterian Global Mission, have also been a presence in Kenya for
many years. Their work continues today in areas such as Kajiado, Narok and
Nairobi. One lay missionary was the Venerable Edel Quinn who established the
Legion of Mary (a movement for lay missionaries) in Kenya in 1936. She broke
new ground for missionaries by bringing together people of different races and
ethnicities in mixed Legion branches. Travelling with her Islamic driver in an
old 1932 Ford, she established branches in Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi.
Motivations have changed since these early missionaries came to Kenya, but
their commitment to the Kenyan people is as strong as ever. Today their focus
includes justice and peace, ecology and working with the poorest of the poor.
Education — The quiet revolution It was notably in the area of education that
the Irish, in particular the missionaries, contributed to their new country.
Irish missionaries established primary and secondary schools in every province
in Kenya. Wangari Maathai, Kenya’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, was taught by an
Irish nun who had fought in Ireland’s War of Independence before becoming a
nun. Sister Teresa Joseph O’Sullivan established the first Catholic high school
for Kenyan girls in Limuru in 1936. Maathai acknowledged the nun’s influence in
her memoir, Unbowed, saying Sister Teresa had aroused and encouraged her
lifelong interest in science.
In 1983 Sr Teresa received an award from the National Council
of Women in Kenya in recognition of her contribution to Kenyan women. St Mary’s
School, Nairobi, is the Alma Mater of President Uhuru Kenyatta. It was founded
by the Irish Holy Ghost Fathers in 1939. In the same area as St Mary’s is the
prestigious Loreto Girls School, founded in 1921 by Irish Loreto nuns. In 2013,
the Loreto Sisters were awarded the Kenyan Golden Jubilee Award for Excellence
in Education.
Perhaps the most unusual Irish involvement with Kenyan health
care was that of the so-called Flying Nuns of Turkana. In the early 1960s, the
Irish Medical Missionaries of Mary (MMM) sent young nuns to northwest Kenya to
provide a mobile medical clinic. The young Sisters piloted flimsy two-seater
aircraft, whose wings and fuselage were wrapped in Irish linen and
spray-painted for durability. They flew over a desert of 51,000 sq. km, doing
their own refuelling and basic maintenance, bringing the only available medical
assistance to famine-stricken areas, their supplies usually samples from
Ireland and the USA. Their work continued through the 1960s. A hospital and
training centre was subsequently set up in Kakuma, which continues today under
the supervision of the local diocese.
Dr Roland Burkitt had a practice in Nairobi in the 1920s with
other Irish doctors. He was among the first to understand that, in cases of
fever, lowering temperature quickly was necessary. A somewhat eccentric man, he
was known to have driven a patient naked around Nairobi to this end! When found
pouring water into the radiator of his car, after it boiled over coming up the escarpment,
an old patient passed by and shouted, “Giving your car a spot of your own
famous treatment, Burkitt?”
The better-known of the Burkitts was Professor Dr Denis
Parsons Burkitt, surgeon, scientist and clinician, who came to Mombasa in 1943.
He learned Kiswahili and trekked to equatorial Africa to establish his medical
research. Denis Burkitt had an outstanding ability to observe disease patterns,
identify their peculiarities and develop concepts and hypotheses. He won the
Canada Gairdner International Award for outstanding discoveries or
contributions to medical science in 1973, one among many awards. He was the
first to describe a common and lethal form of childhood cancer in Africa and
the first to discover its cure. African lymphoma, now known as Burkitt’s
lymphoma, is a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma recognised as the fastest-growing
human tumour, associated with impaired immunity. Burkitt first described the
disease in 1958. He studied it in children with malaria and with the
Epstein-Barr virus. Burkitt’s lymphoma is studied by medical students across
the globe.
He was also the first medical researcher, thanks to his
observations in Africa, connect a high fibre diet with better health. He was fond
of saying, “If you have an enemy, give him your frying pan”. His pioneer book
on the topic is The Fibre Man. He died in 1993. Gerald Edward Nevill was an
Irish surgeon who made a major contribution to Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital,
Nairobi, helping it become a modern paediatric institution, the first in
sub-Saharan Africa. The chair of its Board of Management for 42 years, his
contribution is recognised in a wing named after him at the hospital. In more
recent times, Carmelite priest Dr Fr Robert McCabe’s research in Turkana into
tropical diseases resulted in Desert Nomads, a book outlining solutions for
providing healthcare in remote rural areas. It has become a recognised handbook
for all those working in tropical medicine. These pictures and snippets
illustrate but some of the stories of the Irish in Kenya. Today there is still
a strong Irish presence in Kenya — almost 1,500 strong. Irish people work in
the areas of business, education, non-governmental organisations, sport and in
the United Nations, to name but a few. The deepening business relationships and
the re-establishment of an official embassy in 2014 will inform future
relations between Ireland and Kenya so that they can be strengthened by mutual
understanding, respect and opportunity.
ABOUT THE Author Bróna Ní Mhuirí is the wife of the
Ambassador of Ireland in Kenya. A former teacher of history and Gaelic language
and teacher trainer, she has taught in a number of African countries. Photographs
provided by the author.
(This article does not mention the evil some Irish priests did or the brutality of Irish nuns as teachers)
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