Fixby mum-of-six graduates in nursing from Huddersfield University

Oct 20 2010 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A SUPERMUM has successfully juggled bringing up six children with a full-time nursing degree.

Jo-Ann Cornelly’s youngest child Nuala was only nine-months-old when the mum began a four-year course at Huddersfield University.

But the Fixby woman managed to balance the demands of a new baby and five growing children with her studies.

She will graduate next month with a 2.1 in paediatric nursing and has already landed her dream job on the cystic fibrosis unit of the children’s ward at Leeds General Infirmary.

Jo-Ann and her husband Kevin have six children: Domonique, 18, Leoni, 15, Tomas, 13, Niamh, 11, Niall, 8 and Nuala, 4.

The 38-year-old said: “When I started the course, Nuala was only a baby and I had said I was going to be a stay-at-home-mum for a while.

“But I had applied through clearing to go to university and I got the place so it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

Jo-Ann, who now lives in Southowram, said she couldn’t have finished her studies without the support of her “long-suffering” husband Kevin, an engineer, and their parents.

Kevin’s mother Christina and late father Joe Cornelly are from Ireland and Jo-Ann’s mother Deirdre Kenny is also Irish.

She said: “My dad Bernard is as Yorkshire as you get but our background is very Irish.