In order to avoid deportation to the Soviet Union, Anna Popiel moved in 1940 with her children to her parents' house in Kraków.

[1] There, Irena Popiel attended the underground education with a natural profile, organized by the Adam Mickiewicz High School.

As the initiator and co-founder, she participated in the work on the creation of the Conference of Superiors of Female Confraternity Monasteries in Poland (Konferencja Przełożonych Żeńskich Klasztorów Kontemplacyjnych w Polsce).

In the opinion of her companion sisters, she "played a significant role in the preparation of the Statute of the Conference and in the work aimed at its official erection".

[1][2] In the years 1974–1994 she ran the Secretariat of the Subcommittee on Assistance to Cloistered Monasteries of the Episcopal Commission for Convents, under the direction of Father Michał Mroczkowski, then provincial superior of the Dominican Order.

[1] In the opinion of her companion nuns, "although she was the granddaughter of the famous general Franciszek Ksawery Latinik, and inherited from him energetic disposition and clarity of mind – she was characterized by great simplicity, directness, honesty and humility".