- Thekla Beere
Thekla Beere (1902 –
19 February 1991 ) was an Irish civil servant who chaired theUnited Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 1970 and was secretary of Ireland Department of Transport & Power. [Cite book |last=Brady |first=Conor |title=Up With the Times |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |date=2005 |pages=114]Biography
Thekla Beere was born at Streete,
County Westmeath , where her father, the Rev. Francis Beere, was theChurch of Ireland rector. She attendedAlexandra College ,Dublin and did a moderatorship in Legal and Political Sciences and an LL.B atTrinity College, Dublin .She joined the
Civil Service in 1924 and worked initially in the Statistics Branch. In 1925, she won aRockefeller scholarship and traveled extensively in theUSA before resuming her Civil Service career. From 1939, she worked in the Department of Industry and Commerce where during World War II she worked in the area of supply with the then MinisterSeán Lemass . She became Assistant Secretary of that Department in 1953. She was the first woman to achieve the rank of Department Secretary at Transport and Power in 1959.An honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on her by Trinity College in 1960. After her retirement in 1967 she was active in public life, serving as a governor of
Alexandra College and as a director of "The Irish Times ". She was requested by the Government to chair the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 1970 and the "Beere Report" was finalised by the Commission in 1973.Beere had a lifelong interest in the proceedings of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland and was its president. She was a Governor of the
Irish Times Trust and chairwoman of theInternational Labour Office inGeneva . She was a member of the organising committee, which on7 May 1931 set upAn Óige (The Irish Youth Hostelling organisation), of which she was President from 1968 to 1974. She also had an extensive interest in the arts in particular the paintings of Cecil King.References
*Cite book |last=Beere |first=Wyndham |title=A Slice of Magic |publisher=Blackhall Publishing |date=2004 |isbn=1842180851
*Cite book |last=Trench |first=Terry |title=Fifty years young : the story of An Óige |date=1981 |isbn=0950029297
*Cite web |url=http://www.scoilnet.ie/womeninhistory/content/unit4/biog.html#b |title=Discovering Women in Irish History, Biographies - Thelka Berre |accessdate=2008-07-08
*Cite web |url=http://www.equality.ie/getFile.asp?FC_ID=95&docID=266 |title=Thekla Beere, an Appreciation |last=Eager |first=Clare |publisher=Equality News |date=Summer 2000 |pages=21
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