Family and friends gathered to say goodbye to the Irish victim of a bomb blast in Uganda
MARIE SMITH did not boast the traditional robes and vestments worn by Irish missionaries.
But as her friends, family and Uganda’s Irish community gathered at her funeral service underneath the midday sun in Kampala yesterday, they were reminded that she was part of a very proud and noble tradition of Irish missionaries, who had the audacity and resolve to help others more unfortunate than themselves.
“Marie did not fit the stereotype,” Irish Ambassador to Uganda Kevin Kelly told mourners at the Hindu crematorium in the Ugandan capital. “But she followed in the footsteps of many Irish people who showed courage to follow their conscience and come to this continent. Ireland’s relationship with Africa is built on equality and respect.” Marie Smith, he said, embodied those ideals in everything she did. “She is the kind of person who makes us proud to be Irish in Africa.”
Born in 1958, Marie Smith grew up in Terenure, Dublin. Her father Donal ran a shoe shop in Stoneybatter, and her mother Netta was a painter. At 15 she left home to travel around Europe.
“It was very difficult for my parents,” said her brother Colm, a jazz flautist in Dublin. “They loved her very much, but obviously it was a very unusual thing.”
An independently minded woman, even in her teenage years, nothing would stand in her way. “The one feeling I have of her now is that she was a force of nature. She was very driven and nothing was going to stop her, no matter what she did.”
She moved to Germany, where she met Roger Smith, a US serviceman from Dublin, Georgia, who was posted overseas. At 22 she had her first son, Benjamin, but two years later, after giving birth to two more sons, Roger and Sean, Roger snr died of cancer.
“I think she was ready to make her life in Germany, but then my father died,” said Benjamin. “We were three rapscallions, so it must have been tough. But she was a genius. She raised us with the principles of respect, and always told us that we should never impose ourselves on others.”
In 1989 Marie moved with her three sons to South Africa, after a friend told her that “it is a very interesting place to bring up a mixed race family,” said Colm. It seemed like a crazy move, given that her husband had been African-American, and her sons were of mixed race. At the time Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned on Robben Island, and apartheid was still enforced.
“But she was always someone looking for new challenges,” said Jake Aird, an Englishman who met her when she came to South Africa. “When she lived in Johannesburg, which is a pretty tough city, she was always going to where angels fear to tread.
“She lived downtown in Orange Grove, right next to the gangster area of Hillsborough, which is one of the toughest areas of Johannesburg. Most people wouldn’t work never mind live there,” he said.
But she threw herself into South African society, learning the local languages Zulu and Sesutu and adopting “crazy African hairstyles”. She gave Bible classes on behalf of her church, The Family International, which is US based, and offered counselling to people affected by HIV/Aids.
She moved to Uganda only two months ago, said Aird, after deciding to move deeper into the continent.
“She will be missed . . . But we want her death to be a testimony of the life she led.”
An Irish survivor of the bomb blast in the Ethiopian Village restaurant where Marie was killed said: “We were just 15ft away from the blast,” said Stewart Kelly, from Bray, an international relations student at Tufts University, Massachusetts. “But apparently, the angle we were sitting at saved our lives.”
The simple choice of where you sat, he said, was the difference between life and death.
After Song for Irelandwas sung by Siobhan Kelly, a Dubliner living in Kampala, Marie's son Benjamin spoke a few words, after which the funeral pyre with Marie's coffin upon it was lit.
“This is just the cocoon,” said Chris Carruthers, a member of Marie’s church, reminding them of an anecdote once told by cartoonist Arthur Carruthers.
“When our loved ones pass, it is foolish to remember only the cocoon and concentrate our attention on the remains, while forgetting the bright butterfly which flies on, free forever.”