Tribute was paid to Sr Ann Thomas on Liveline earlier this week, as Ger Smith told of her care for himself and his siblings in Ballymun after their mother was taken into care for Schizophrenia.
Mr Smith related how himself and his siblings were left in a flat in Ballymun, with his brother being the oldest at 14. Asked who ran the house, he referenced the “home-help”, Sr Ann Thomas, of the little Sisters of the Assumption.
Sr Ann worked for Sophia, a housing agency, and quickly became more than home-help. She began to visit twice a day, sometimes more frequently.
“She’d come in in the morning and make sure we were up, getting out the school – I never got on well in school so I went and done a course, so she made sure we went to that. And she’d reward us then,” Mr Smith told.
“We were very, very lucky… We knew that out of everyone that was in our flat the day our mammy went the one person we could trust was Ann, and she was the only one who never left us. Everybody else just done their job and got on with it, but her job wasn’t just Sophia housing…the time that lady gave us. We would have never seen past six months.”
Sr Ann’s cousin, Josie Flynn, corroborated Mr Smith’s story, saying, “We actually never knew until Ann died just all the good work she had done because she never told anybody that she did all this good work.
“She was just quiet and she went about her business, and not one of us ever knew, including her sister….She definitely, definitely was a Mother Teresa,” Ms Flynn said, a sentiment which Mr Smith echoed.
Sr Ann died in October, but Ms Flynn said her goodness was recognised by all: “Even the condolences, like if you looked at the condolences that people had left it was from families, ‘We would have never managed without Ann, Ann really helped us’.”