Cecelia (Cecil) O'Connell, who died recently in her 101st year, has been described as "a quiet pioneer". She would never have considered herself as such, but as only the second woman to qualify in engineering from University College Cork (the first was Iris Ashley Cummins who qualified before her in 1916), she was one of the trailblazers of women in engineering in Ireland. The second youngest of nine children of Cork solicitor Barry Galvin and his wife Annie, she was brought up in Cork at Parkhurst, Victoria Road. There was no engineering tradition in her family with other siblings pursuing medicine, law or other occupations. Her eldest sister, Dr Mary Galvin, was believed to be the first woman to run a city dispensary in Ireland.
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