The pioneering work and achievements of a Kerry teacher who was a leading trade union activist in Ireland are to be celebrated at an event being organised on the 50th anniversary of her death.

The Kerry Branch of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland is to honour the memory of Patricia Hurley, a teacher from Killorglin who was a prominent trade union leader until her untimely death in a car accident on 10 November 1972.

A plaque will be unveiled by the Minister for Education, Norma Foley, at Killorglin Community College on Friday (November 11) to ensure that Patricia Hurley’s contribution to teaching and trade union activism is permanently remembered.

Ms Hurley, who taught at Killorglin Technical School, made history by becoming the first ever female vice-president of the Vocational Teachers’ Association (VTA), a forerunner of the modern-day TUI. She was one of the first women to occupy a senior position in any trade union in Ireland. She was also a passionate advocate for vocational and adult education.

"Patricia Hurley made a profound make on Irish education despite dying tragically at the young age of just 34 years,’ Joe Brennan, Kerry Branch Chairman of TUI, one of the organisers of an event to honour Ms Hurley, said.

Anne Doyle, Kerry Branch Equality Officer, added that Ms Hurley made history by becoming vice-president of the union in 1971.

"She was a vocal advocate for vocational education and despite being a full-time teacher in Killorglin, she travelled the country working with branches of the union. It was on her return from a union meeting in November 1972, during which she was supporting strike action by teachers in County Wexford, that she was sadly killed in a road collision near Enniscorthy," she said.

A native of Ardeevin, Killorglin, Ms Hurley was also a member of the Irish Congress of Trade Union advisory committee on the Commission on the Status of Women and sat on the Department of Education committee on the Junior Certificate examination in the early 1970s. She also represented the Kerry Vocational Education Committee (VEC) at a conference on adult education in Denmark a few weeks before she died.