Helen Collins Ryan

Believing in American opportunity and the values of hard work and loyalty to one’s heritage, Helen Ryan Collins (1926-2015) was proud of her clan’s roots in the Dingle Peninsula (Corca Dhuibhne) in Ireland’s southwestern county of Kerry. The Collins family and its friends are making the dreams of deserving students substantially more possible, and we’re hugely grateful.

Helen Ryan Collins was a strong women. Upon losing her parents as a teenager, she raised her younger brother. Widowed at only 21, when her husband passed due to service in World War II, she successfully raised her son, despite challenging economic circumstances. In her forties, she realized a long-held dream of earning a college degree, which she subsequently used to build a fruitful career as an investigator and mediator with the State of New York. Throughout her long life, she loved and honored both the United States and Ireland. She taught her son to cherish the uniqueness and worth of his Irish patrimony. In addition, she took her grandchildren to Ireland to experience the country firsthand.