This collage depicts certain periods in Irene's life:  The wheatfields on the left represent the area of Trayning - the home of Irene before entering the Josephites; the jarrah trees in the centre are symbols of Manjimup where Irene was School Principal; and the Andes Mountains of Huasahuasi, sacred to the memory of Irene's ministry and death.

IRENE MCCORMACK

Material Submitted to

Martyrology Commission 2001

Sister Irene McCormack, Member of the Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.

Irene McCormack was born on 21 August 1938 in Kununoppin, Western Australia. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph on 29 January 1956 and taught in Western Australia for most of her religious life.

On 15 November 1986 in the Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel, North Sydney, Irene was missioned to Peru. In an address given in January 1987 in St Columba's Church, South Perth, Irene expressed her desire to work in Peru and shared a little of her journey of faith. "The inner voice to which I must listen and respond to be true to myself as Irene - as woman, as Christian, as Josephite, as world citizen has been heard through reflection and prayer ... My belief is that if I fail to respond I am choosing spiritual death. My yielding to the urging of the spirit within to choose to make myself available to enter into life in the Third World with displaced agricultural workers, is not a compulsion, but a freedom - though I suppose you could say that it is evidence that it is dangerous to pray, because you don't know just where or to what it might lead you. I set out, therefore for Peru with a sense of wholeness and peace, with the conviction that I'm answering the challenge in the first reading from Dueteronomy to 'choose life' in the historical circumstances of our time."

Irene's first assignment was in a low income area in El Pacifico and Santa de Perola in the suburb of San Martin de Porres in Lima. On 26 June 1989 Irene left to serve in Huasahuasi, in the Andes Mountains about 200 km from Lima. Irene with her companion, Sister Dorothy Stevenson, were asked to supervise the distribution of emergency goods of Caritas Peru. Irene continued her ministry of providing library facilities to poor children who had no chance of obtaining books to aid in their school homework. Irene also trained Eucharistic ministers, as well as visiting the parishioners in outlying districts of the Parish.

On 17 December 1989 the priests of Huasahuasi were warned that they were in danger so they and the two Sisters left the village for Lima. Irene, however, felt that the church could not abandon the villagers at this time so returned on 14 January 1990 with a companion. For 12 months Huasahuasi was without a resident priest. During this time Irene and Dorothy served the people, led the Communion services and provided leadership for the people of the area.

About 6 pm on Tuesday, 21 May 1991 an armed band of members of Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path) entered the town of Huasahuasi. They entered a number of homes behaving in a terrifying manner. In front of their wives and children, four men were taken from their homes and brought to the central plaza of the town. Members of the gang also went to the convent of the Sisters of St Joseph where Irene was alone. Her companion, Sister Dorothy, who was also on their death list, was in Lima for medical treatment. The terrorists did not enter the convent but ordered Irene to come out, which eventually she did. She was also marched to the plaza and made to sit on the benches there with the other four men.

For about an hour the five victims were harangued, interrogated and shouted at. Several local people interceded for the lives of the five, saying they were good people and not wrongdoers. The terrorists retorted that they had not come to dialogue, but to carry out sentence. In particular, Irene was accused of dispensing 'American food' (the Caritas provisions) and spreading American ideas (by providing Peruvian school books!). The people's insistence that she was Australian, not American, was dismissed as being irrelevant. At one time a group of young people from the village gathered around Irene in the darkness and gradually moved her back into the crowd. But she was soon missed by the soldiers and was ordered back to face the terrorists. Eventually the five were ordered to lie face down on the terrazzo-tiled surface of the plaza. Each was shot once in the back of the head. Irene was the first to be killed - about six metres from the door of the church.

Since the bodies could not be moved from the plaza until authorities gave permission next morning, parishioners kept vigil by the body of Irene, burning candles and praying. Then a group of women laid her out in the sacristy and did for her what their families did for the men killed with her. On 23 May 1991 a huge funeral Mass was held and Irene was buried in the Huasahuasi cemetery in a niche donated by a parishioner.

Traditional family ceremonies of honour for Irene were afterwards carried out by a group of parishioners who expressed a deep understanding of the fact that, as a religious, Irene had given her life for them. They claimed her as their own, while sending messages of sympathy to Irene's family of birth and to her spiritual family, the Josephites. Irene's grave is tended every day with fresh flowers and the people of Huasahuasi and El Pacifico have celebrated the anniversary of her death each year with special solemnity. The story of her life and death has also made an ongoing impact on many from Australia and beyond.