A life less ordinary: Spending time with the last Irish missionary nun in Japan

James Creedon, a journalist based in Paris for France 24, spent a year recording the memories of his elderly cousin, the last Irish missionary nun in Japan. As he turns the footage into a documentary, he tells her story.

I first met Jennie O’Sullivan in October 2012. She had recently returned to Ireland after 75 years in Japan. My grandmother and mother had been invited to her 100th birthday celebrations where a letter was read out from the crown princess of Japan, one of her past pupils.

Jennie was born in 1912 in Clougduv, Co Cork. As a child she recalls the death of Michael Collins just over the hills in Béal na Bláth. In Clougduv National School, shots were fired through the windows during the Civil War and she and her classmates had to duck under the desk.