Shirley Dennehy received a posthumous award in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
By Kath Gannaway
HUMBLE, even troubled beginnings didn’t stop Shirley Dennehy living a life of amazing academic and professional and humanitarian achievement.
Ms Dennehy, a former student of Healesville Primary School, was posthumously awarded the Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours announced on Monday.
The award recognised her service to education, particularly to children with a hearing impairment, and to the community as a legal practitioner.
Ms Dennehy died on 5 January.
Her father, Arvon Dennehy, died in World War II and her mother, Gladys, died not long after from TB.
After a short time in an orphanage, she was raised in Healesville by her grandmother Laura Dennehy and her uncle and aunt, Bob and Madge Dennehy.
She blossomed when she went to Lilydale High School where she was dux in her final year, 1957.
The award lists her achievements as Director of Services at Taralye, the oral language centre for deaf children in Blackburn, from 1981 to 2002, lecturer in audiology at the University of Melbourne and various other roles with the Department of Education’s Early Childhood Development from 1961 to 1981.
She was admitted to the Victorian Bar as a barrister in 2004 and worked as a solicitor with Victoria Legal aid. Following her retirement due to ill health, she worked as a volunteer with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
Her partner of 36 years, Marilyn Jamieson, said the award was well-deserved.
“It is due recognition paid to an amazing career,” she said.
She said colleagues at Taralye were determined to acknowledge her contribution and had set up a committee to nominate her.
“She had an interest in anything academic and completed her degree part-time, at the same time as she was director at Taralye, in the same time as people do it full-time,” she said proudly.
“She had an amazing memory and an equally amazing desire to learn. She loved learning and her breadth of understanding went right across all areas of history, literature … everything,” she said.
Ms Jamieson will accept the award on behalf of Shirley Dennehy at an awards ceremony later this year.
