Irish Dominican nun, community activist and anti-apartheid campaigner.
Born in Dublin in 1926, Áine Hardiman joined the Dominican Order at the age of 18. In 1952, she went to work in South Africa where she took on the position as a headmistress at a white school. She now works with the black community and has spent time in prison for her opposition to the apartheid regime.
Quoting from an article in The Irish Times published two week's earlier, David Hanly introduces Sr Áine Hardiman by asking her why she is so at odds with the message from the Vatican to South African bishops.
A Dublin nun who has worked for almost 35 years in South Africa and who next month returns to the black townships of Cape Town yesterday said she could not believe the Vatican's message to the South African Catholic bishops, that clergy there must stay out of politics. Sr Áine Hardiman said her response to the pope's message delivered to the bishops during their annual conference was total disbelief.
While the church has always condemned apartheid, Sr Áine believes that in recent years there has been a greater need for the church to express solidarity with the oppressed.
To be silent in South Africa is to be political. That is, to side with it, to be part of the status quo.
This episode of 'Hanly's People' was broadcast on 16 February 1987. The presenter is David Hanly.
'Hanly's People' was a weekly programme featuring a guest in conversation with presenter David Hanly in a living room setting for half an hour. Each guest was someone in the news, making the news, or behind the news. Guests were drawn from all spheres of public life, including politics and the arts. 'Hanly's People' was first broadcast on 6 October 1986 and ended on 6 June 1991.
