A life of service

By Kath Gannaway
SHIRLEY Dennehy, who died on 5 January, valued the public school education that provided the building blocks for a lifetime of exceptional academic and career achievements.
The little girl, who attended Healesville State School in the late 40s and went on to become Dux of Lilydale High School in 1957, had overcome a sad start to life.
Shirley’s father, Arvon Dennehy, died in World War II and her mother, Gladys, died not long after from TB.
When Shirley’s grandmother, Laura Dennehy (Arvon’s mother), discovered Shirley and her brother, Reg Jnr. had been placed in an orphanage by Gladys’ family, she adopted her grandchildren and brought them back to Healesville.
Arvon’s older brother Bob, and his wife Madge, took Shirley in when Laura’s health failed and raised her as their own.
John Dennehy remembers his young cousin as a bit of a tomboy, easy going.
“She had been an average student at primary school, but when she went to high school she decided she would study and she became very good academically,” he said.
She was school prefect and a keen sportswoman who was captain of the school cricket team and on the hockey and softball teams.
She concluded a diverse career as a magistrate.
In a tribute to Shirley following her death, Victorian Bar chairman John Digby QC listed her achievements, including 20 years as CEO and director of Services at Taralye, the oral language centre for deaf children in Blackburn. Shirley presented papers on issues concerning the education of children with hearing loss in Australia and internationally.
Prior to that role, she had been a secondary teacher, a social worker and a psychologist.
She had degrees in commerce and education, a master’s degree in educational psychology and graduate diplomas in social studies and audiology from Melbourne University.
In the late 1990s she earned her law degree, studying part-time at Latrobe University while still Director of Services at Taralye.
Shirley was admitted to practise in 2002, working as a solicitor at Victoria Legal Aid and regularly serving as duty lawyer and appearing in the magistrates’ court.
She signed the Bar Roll in April 2004, practising largely in the magistrates’ and children’s courts before resigning from the Bar in 2005 due to illness.
Mr Dennehy said his cousin had always valued education and was generous in sharing her passion for learning.
“There were many people who spoke at the service of how good she was to young people whom she tutored and helped with their VCE studies,” he said.
Her passion for social justice had also seen her become involved later in her life with refugees.
Family, friends and colleagues of Shirley Dennehy paid tribute at a service on 9 January 2009 followed by burial at the Eltham Cemetery.