Cork Rose showcases important work in empowering women with disabilities

The Cork Rose took to the stage in Tralee tonight and impressed the audience and those watching at home with her choice of career and where it has led her.

Jenny Byrne studied International Development and Food Policy at University College Cork (UCC), graduating in 2019.

Most of her focus was on gender studies, working with women with disabilities which she said she “absolutely loved”.

She went on to study a PhD at NUI Galway which explores employment opportunities for women with disabilities based in Cambodia and Rwanda.

She said that the issues in Cambodia or Rwanda, in particular in relation to women with disabilities in the employment sector “are really similar to the issues we see in Ireland and any other European countries”.

Jenny is set to travel to Cambodia on September 12, a trip she said took “a huge amount of preparation” but that NUI Galway and the NGOs “have been brilliant”.

Also representing Cork at this year’s Rose of Tralee festival was the Sydney Rose Mairéad Brennan, known as Maud, from Glantane near Mallow, who took to the stage on Monday evening.

She told Dáithí Ó Sé of her time working at quarantine hotels as a nurse in Australia, having moved there in January 2020 after two years of practicing as a nurse in Cork.

Now, she provides home care for palliative patients which is an area she said she “wants to get into” going forward.

Mairéad performed the song ‘In My Father’s House’, dedicating it to her father who ed away in 2017 after receiving a cancer diagnosis in 2013.