MOIRA HENRY was a freelance journalist, a gifted dressmaker and throughout her life, a campaigner against the abuse of animals. Moira designed and made her own clothes in her own individual style. She had a fine flair for colour and design, and her outfit, along with her striking make up, always made her conspicuous in a group. She was often to be seen taking coffee in Bewley's, and to those who knew her only at a distance she must have seemed a picturesque and harmless eccentric.
But Moira was much more than that. Her original and carefully crafted outfit was outward sign of an independent and enquiring mind. Quite early in life, she had reacted with horror at the sight of cattle being roughly driven through Dublin streets on their way to the butcher's yard. Vegetarianism in those days was regarded as cranky and perverse, but a combination of compassion and logic brought Moira to adopt that way of life on March 15th, 1934.
Not many years later she took logic a step further and became a Vegan, remaining so for the rest of her long life. Moira's uncompromising opposition to the exploitation of animals for human pleasure or benefit drew her also to the (then) Irish Union Against Vivisection, of which she was honorary secretary for many years.
Moira had, on the whole, an unfavourable view of human behaviour, and was saddened throughout her life by the suffering of animals at human hands. For many years an agnostic, she was, by her own wish, buried on February 17th without religious ceremony. No clergy were present at her graveside: only a few relatives and friends were there to say farewell to an irreplaceable person, for whom the world was too distressing a place.