If you happen to look skywards and spy a nun speeding towards the
ground, don’t be alarmed — it’s only Sister Patricia bringing manna from
heaven.Her leap of faith is all about raising money for the charity Aware, which assists those affected by depression. She also hopes to assist projects in south Tipperary where she lives.
Sr Patricia Wall entered the Presentation Order when she was 17, but began to develop severe depression in the late-1960s and, despite her vocation, was on the verge of taking her own life.
Despite all the advice at the time to ‘say a prayer and you will be fine’, she ended up taking a year-long break from her convent duties to recover.
Now she wants to help others in similar situations. Working in the rural parts of south Tipperary, Sr Patricia has seen first-hand the damage suicide can cause to families.
She hopes to raise in the region of €150,000 to be divided between Aware and community groups involved in helping people cope with rural isolation as well as funding services like childcare and historical projects.
Sr Patricia says she was inspired to do a parachute jump after locals raised funds for a memorial garden in Ballynonty doing the same thing.
Nerves? Not a bit of it.
“They have only had seven broken bones in seven years at Sky Dive Ireland so I might just get away with it,” she says, although she won’t be making a ‘habit’ of it.
The feisty sister is going to walk out onto the pitch at Thurles on Mar 9 when Tipperary take on Kilkenny. She will address the crowd and ask them to donate if they want to see her leap from the skies.
“I am looking forward to the match and I am looking forward to the jump even more,” she says. “It should be a bit of a laugh. I think I am the first nun to ever do this and definitely the first at 76 years of age, but they had a woman in her 90s jump, so I suppose I am still young enough and, sure, they won’t get rid of me that easily.”
Sr Patricia, well-known for fundraising for local projects, is scheduled to take the jump on the first week in May from Sky Dive Ireland’s airfield in Birr, Co Offaly. She already has a clean bill of health to take her leap into the history books.