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Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Woman believed to be Ireland's oldest person dies days before 109th birthday
A woman born in the year of the Easter Rising and who survived two pandemics has died just days before her 109th birthday. Sarah Coyle, believed to be Ireland's oldest person, died peacefully at her daughter Marian Galligan's home in Castleknock, Dublin , on Monday July 14th, just 10 days before her 109th birthday, her family confirmed. She was surrounded by her family when she died, her grandson Thomas Galligan said. Just days earlier, she thanked the family for all they had done for her and 'wanted us to know we had her blessing', he said. Ms Galligan told The Irish Times earlier this year her mother, who grew up in Co Wicklow, had memories of significant periods in Irish history, including from the Civil War (1922-1923) and even the War of Independence (1919-1921). READ MORE Those memories, Ms Galligan said, included of the Black and Tans , British forces operating in Ireland during the War of Independence who were notorious for their violence. Ms Coyle remembered one occasion when all the men called James in her home area were rounded up by the Black and Tans in an effort to identify who had shot one of their members. Ms Coyle's father James was among those taken up the mountains but, while his family feared the worst, he returned home uninjured several hours later. Ms Coyle had nine siblings, some of whom also lived beyond their centenary year. Her sister Lily Kelly, who lives in Solihull in England, turned 103 in April. One of her brothers, Andy Byrne, died shortly before his 101st birthday. Ms Coyle was born in Knockatomcoyle, a townland in Co Wicklow, before her family moved to Coolkenno, near Tullow. She was working as a housekeeper in Foxrock when she met Tom Coyle from Cavan at a dance. [ Ireland's oldest woman (108) recalls Black and Tans and attributes long life to 'new nettles' in cabbage Opens in new window ] They married and lived in Drumcondra. The couple had four children but two of their daughters died as newborns. Ms Coyle, who lost her eyesight in her early thirties, has five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Her husband worked as a postman until he had a stroke in his late 50s, followed by a brain haemorrhage. When asked what her mother attributed her longevity to, Marian Galligan said she would gather the first nettles every spring and put them in the cabbage. 'She used to say, 'that will purify your blood'.'
Irish Times
15 hours ago
- Irish Times
Coping with summer childcare a ‘dicey hodgepodge' of annual leave and magnanimous grandmothers
'We have only one child specifically because we could not imagine being able to meet the costs of a bigger family,' says Marie, a manager from North County Dublin. 'We are spending €525 for our five-year-old to attend five weeks of summer camps that vary between three to four hours a day. The rest of the day being covered by a dicey hodgepodge of annual leave, parental leave, magnanimous grandmothers, and sheer miracles,' she says. Marie was one of a number of people who responded to a callout from The Irish Times for stories from parents about their experience with sending children to camps during the summer. 'Jane', who did not want to reveal her name, is a parent to 12-year-old twins in Limerick city. 'Each summer is a nightmare, with trying to find ways to work and keep children occupied,' she says. READ MORE 'Neither I nor my partner can work from home. In previous summers, I have spent the bones of €1,000 on camps. They start late, 9.30 or 10am and finish early, so you are late to work, leaving early, trying to get grandparents to help. 'This summer I am taking extra unpaid leave and only sending the kids to two camps, costing me about €600 for two children, but not everyone can afford to do that. It's very stressful and far from ideal. 'The holidays are too long for how families are set up now. And the cost is ridiculous. The quality of camps varies hugely and you are stuck, so have to pay.' Irish primary school holidays run from the last week of June until the week in which September 1st falls. Post-primary schools have a longer break due to the start of State exams in June, closing before the first Monday of that month. This arrangement means working parents must find alternative childcare arrangements for up to 12 weeks of the summer, when the statutory minimum is four weeks paid annual leave per year. Grace Healy, a chemical engineer from Co Cork, has devised a spreadsheet filled with art, sports, horse riding, gymnastics, singing and acting for her nine- and 10-year-olds. 'This is how we're surviving the summer when we both work full time. We take a two-week holiday. The rest are camps,' she says. Grace Healy's two sons aged nine and 10. Photograph courtesy of Grace Healy However, not everyone is happy with how the camps are run. Carol, mother to a six-year old boy in Co Wicklow, says when compared to the European approach where 'whole afternoons a few times a week are given over to extracurricular activities and sport, the summer camps here are a huge missed opportunity to introduce and instil sport skills. A camp that's 9am-12pm is impossible to make work and offers less value for money. 'We are limited to a private childcare provider through the school, that granted, does a full day. But when I asked my six-year-old if he was looking forward to playing in the fields, trips and trying different sports, he said no. It would be the same as Easter and Halloween camps – sitting down doing theme crafts, in the yard running around with pals a bit. 'Parents are now usually older and both working full time. It's hard to really put in the time and effort and it pains me to see another aspect of parenting where I feel I am letting my child down.' Another parent, Marie, notes how 'Ireland has now been set up to require that two full-time earners are needed to cover basic living costs for families in all but the most exceptional cases. The reality today is that summer camps are an absolute necessity for families with young children.' Niamh from Westmeath, who has three children between nine and 17 years old, says: 'I used to dread the summer holidays. Thankfully, we're out the other side now with the oldest aged 17, but I agree that some form of State-sponsored childcare on school grounds would be ideal.' Many of the parents agreed that publicly funded or delivered childcare during the summer months would ease a lot of the pressure on working families. Jane suggests 'primary schools should provide organised subsidised camps for July, just leaving August free'. Family photograph courtesy of Carol. Carol's vision is of 'a school-run camp for three or four weeks when school wraps up to focus on all the extracurricular life skills. It could include trips, a hike, a beach day, a pool day.' She adds that 'a national extracurricular summer scheme attached to the school would also greatly help the less advantaged of this country. Where weeklong holidays are provided by charities in some cases, extracurricular summer courses would benefit children for life, and their parents.' Maria Quintanilla, from the Canary Islands in Spain says, 'the problem is not that summer camps are expensive or the holidays are too long, it's the system'. She sees the solution from the Spanish civil service, which organises childcare in the office and relies on a 'summer and winter core times arrangement which means 'during summer, the hours are reduced and there is no lunch break, so staff finish their shift at lunchtime. During winter, the hours are made up.' But is public or organisational childcare over the summer holidays a realistic prospect? Parents are despondent: 'If change comes, it will be long after the problem is no longer mine to contend with,' says Marie. Niamh adds: 'I wouldn't hold my breath. As long as the Catholic Church continues its stranglehold on Irish educational facilities, such logical and, dare I say it, women-friendly arrangements, can only be a pipe dream.'
RTÉ News
17 hours ago
- RTÉ News
'I have to have hope,' says Tuam relative as excavation works begin
The daughter of a woman whose child died in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home has described as "absolutely momentous" the beginning of excavation work at the site in Co Galway. Annette McKay's mother Maggie O'Connor was sent to an industrial school when her mother died in 1936. While there, Ms O'Connor became pregnant after she was raped by a caretaker when she was 17. She was then moved to Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Ms O'Connor was separated from her child after the birth and was moved to St Anne's in Loughrea. It was there where she was told that her baby, Mary Margaret, had died in Tuam. "Even a thimble full of Mary Margaret, to place that baby with her mum, would mean everything" Ms McKay spoke to RTÉ's News at One about her mother's experiences and the subsequent investigations and inquiries into the deaths at the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam. She explained that her mother did not speak about her experiences in the home until she was 70. "It was the birth of my first grandchild that upset her very much, which was not the case for my mum loved babies and it brought out this harrowing tale about her baby; her bonnie baby, Mary Margaret," she said. "It was just unreal, how could we have lived all our lives, and she get to be 70 and we didn't know about this terrible, terrible thing that had happened to her?" Ms McKay said that it also feels "very hard and emotional". "I've had my DNA taken because I'm in the group described as old and vulnerable," she said. "Because I'm on the advisory board, I do have this bird's eye view of the discussions around DNA techniques, what's possible, what's not possible, the ages of the babies. "The way they've been lying in the water table, commingled remains; it is technically very, very difficult, but I have to have hope." "Even a thimble full of Mary Margaret, to place that baby with her mum, would mean everything," Ms McKay said. Ms McKay said that her mother had been moved from Tuam to St Anne's in Loughrea, and she had been told that it was the women who the nuns regarded as "troublesome" or "wanting to spend too much time with their babies" who were moved from Tuam. "There was no bonding with that child to be allowed," she explained. "So mum was pegging washing out in Loughrea, and the nun came behind her and just said 'the child of your sin is dead' and they threw her out the same day - that's all she ever knew about that baby." She said that her mother was traumatised by her experiences in the Mother and Baby Home. "I always tell people the nuns lived in our home because the nuns were always present - all the trauma, all the damage, all the pain, all the stories. "I can recall now, the names of the sisters who abused my mother, so for her to keep that secret for 50 years, was a tremendous stigma and shame visited on those women." "They had no idea about how deep the trauma was and how terrible the experience she's lived through" After leaving the home, Ms O'Connor moved to Belfast, where she met Ms McKay's father. "She had my older brother in Belfast, but (the father) deserted her... she wrote to her sister in Bury and her brother-in-law came to rescue Maggie and my older brother. "My father reappeared again, then there were two more children, and then he deserted her for good. "So, Bury is where she remained and always described living in our town as a sanctuary." Ms McKay said that her mother had always referred to English people as "very welcoming" and had helped her though "traumatic episodes". "They had no idea about how deep the trauma was and how terrible the experience she's lived through." In 2015, the Government set up an investigation into 14 Mother and Baby homes and four county homes, which found "significant quantities" of human remains on the Tuam site. The inquiry found an "appalling level of infant mortality" in the institutions and said that no alarm was raised by the state over them, even though it was "known to local and national authorities". The State inquiry led to a formal government apology in 2021, the announcement of a redress scheme and an apology from the Sisters of Bon Secours. Ms McKay said that her mother had not been very interested in the redress scheme and had asked her daughter to deal with the proceedings. "A solicitor came and said she would take the case on and suddenly all this paperwork appeared - the baby's death certificate, the birth certificate and this place called Tuam. "Years later, in a story in an English newspaper: 'A terrible discovery in the West of Ireland of a grave containing a septic tank containing the bodies of 796 children'. "I knew she was on that list. And she was." A team of Irish and international forensic experts have broken ground at the site of the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam. The excavation will take two years and will try to identify the remains of the infants who died between 1925 and 1961, more than 11 years after Catherine Corless first drew attention to the burial site. Ms McKay described as "absolutely momentous" the beginning of the work at the site. "We were there last week, and the team gave us a chance to see what the site looks like now. It's forensically sealed and they were preparing to work. "I describe that journey as a chance to say goodbye for now."
