Maureen Walsh, mother of music manager Louis, remembered as an ‘extraordinary woman' at funeral Mass
Maureen Walsh, the mother of music manager
Louis Walsh
, was remembered at her funeral Mass as an 'extraordinary' person who left an 'incredible mark' on the lives of many.
Figures from the world of
music
, including
Westlife
members Shane Filan, Kian Egan and
Nicky Byrne
, and singers
Dana
and Michael English, joined the Walsh family in Co Mayo on Thursday to celebrate the 94-year-old's life.
English, who was Ms Walsh's favourite country singer, performed a selection of hymns during the Mass at the Church of the Holy Family in Kiltimagh.
In a eulogy, one of Ms Walsh's daughter, Sara Keogh, described her mother as an 'extraordinary' woman who left an 'incredible mark' on her eight children.
READ MORE
'We had a great upbringing. We wanted for nothing. She pushed us to make the best of ourselves – she didn't do a bad job, I think,' she added.
Ms Keogh recalled her mother going to work in the 1970s for the Western Care Association, which provides services to people with intellectual disabilities.
'This gave her a new lease of life,' she told mourners. 'She loved every minute of it. This was where she made some of her best friends in life.'
Her son Frank Walsh told mourners his mother was 'a woman of great strength, loyalty and grace'.
'She was hardworking, had great faith and found joy in the simple things,' he said.
The simple things she loved included watching GAA matches, set dancing, fancy dress, country music and playing cards games such as 25 and bridge.
Chief celebrant Fr Michael Quinn said Ms Walsh's death would be an immense loss for her eight children, 20 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He said she was a person of great faith, with a particular devotion to Padre Pio.
Among the gifts brought to the altar were Ms Walsh's Rosary beads, a picture of Padre Pio, a Mayo flag, a rolling pin, a family photograph, a transistor radio and a copy of her favourite magazine, Ireland's Own.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Thomas Mann's 150th birthday present to Germany and the world: a warning from history
Thomas Mann and James Joyce never met in life but, especially in death, found much in common. Both were writers of challenging fiction who ended their days in self-imposed exile in Zürich. Both are buried there, at opposite ends of town. During their lifetimes their respective homelands rejected them first with mockery, then hatred – Joyce's works were banned, Mann's burned. After decades of posthumous apathy, both were resurrected by their homelands for praise and monetisation purposes. Just 10 days before another episode of Ireland's Bloomsday malarkey, Germany is celebrating Thomas Mann's 150th birthday in a state of nervous jubilation. A new, hefty biography heads the long list of books, while critics and essayists have delivered fresh prophetic framings for Mann's major works in the present. READ MORE Is modern Germany and Europe, some wonder, heading back to the Zauberberg (Magic Mountain)? Mann's 1924 novel tells of a healthy young engineer, Hans Castorp, who visits a friend in a Davos mountain-top clinic only to succumb to its self-indulgent charms of introspection, hypochondria, disease and death. Running through the book, two polar-opposite patients - one a humanist democrat and the other a fascism-adjacent communist revolutionary - debate 'power and law, tyranny and freedom, superstition and science'. Mann was channelling the debates that dominated his world a century ago - and ours today. [ The Magician by Colm Tóibín: Beautiful, sweeping exploration of Thomas Mann's life Opens in new window ] For German writer Thomas Wiedermann, who wrote a novel based on the author, the Zauberberg is 'about a pre-war world, a burnt-out society … where the smallest spark is enough to make the world explode'. A century on, he fears the modern world is 'not repeating [the past] but at least mirroring it'. Others see worrying contemporary parallels to Mann's first novel, Buddenbrooks, drawing on his early years in the northern city of Lübeck where he was born on June 6th, 1875. This debut novel, published when he was 26, sweeps the reader through the rise and fall of a wealthy merchant family whose business is built by the first generation, managed by the second and ruined by the third. Last February, the Neue Zürcher daily suggested Switzerland was suffering from third-generation 'Buddenbrooks syndrome', happily living off the family fortune, 'studying art history, working less, retiring earlier'. Rather than citizens, the NZZ argued, 'the Swiss have become consumers of their own state'. Similar arguments can be heard in Germany, trapped in a never-ending recession, and a recent warning from Chancellor Friedrich Merz that holiday-loving Germans 'need to work more'. Mann won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929 for his work, packed with universal, timeless themes that are finding new relevance and attention today. His 150th birthday today became a dual celebration of sorts. [ Opens in new window ] It marked the reopening of the fabled villa that Thomas and Katja Mann had built in California's Pacific Palisades. It was purchased and restored by the German state a decade ago - but it's a miracle there is even a house left. Last January, as wildfires raged through nearby Santa Monica and edged into Pacific Palisades, villa staff raced through the house, snatching the writer's handwritten papers, paintings and beloved Goethe complete works - but had to leave behind thousands of personal mementos and rare books. Much of the neighbourhood was consumed by fire but the worst damage to the Mann villa was a thick coating of soot on the facade, which has been scrubbed and repainted for Friday's party. Mann knew personally how quick disaster could strike. He was on a lecture tour of Europe a month after Hitler took power in 1933 when he decided not to return to Germany and settle in Switzerland. His denunciations of the Nazis from there saw them revoke his citizenship and burn his books. After their invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Mann resettled his family in the US. Asked by a reporter there how he felt living in exile, Mann replied: 'Where I am is Germany! I carry my culture within.' It was here that Mann produced his perhaps most relevant works for our time. Not novels, but accessible and urgent essays and public lectures about democracy, its strengths and its enemies. In 1938, with Europe on the brink of war, Mann warned radio audiences that the greatest danger to democracy was the fascination and novelty of fascism. His observations carry eerie echoes today. 'Once [fascism] has subjugated the body through fear,' he warned from personal experience, 'it can even subjugate thought.' In 1943, with war raging in Europe, Mann warned, again on the radio: 'It is a terrible spectacle when the irrational becomes popular.' He eventually returned to Europe in 1952 but settled in Zürich, shunning Germany. His countrymen had never forgiven him – for fleeing, for surviving the war under Californian palm trees, but most of all for his BBC propaganda broadcasts into his homeland. Many Germans who convinced themselves later they they knew nothing of the Holocaust resented how, even in far-away California, Mann knew as early as 1942 of the mass murder of Polish Jews using poison gas. It was, he warned, 'an expression of the spirit and attitude of the National Socialist revolution'. Even worse than him knowing: he knew they knew, a point he kept ramming home. In another broadcast he lectured the Germans, literally, about the terrible irony of their situation: a dictator dangling before the noses of a people he viewed as 'cowardly, submissive and stupid' a bright future as a 'race destined for world domination'. In an open letter, published four months after Germany's capitulation, Mann insisted he would not return to a 'stupid, empathy-free' German people who 'would like to pretend that 12 years never happened'. The final kick came with his remark in the letter about the Allied bombings of German cities: 'Everything must be paid for'. No wonder, then, that his eventual return to Germany in 1949 was a chilly affair. Many Germans saw Mann as a traitor, even more so after he visited East Germany to accept a literary medal of honour. Two years later, learning that Mann had resettled in Switzerland, the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily denounced him as 'an exponent of an aversion to Germany that goes as far as stupidity'. Germany fell out of love with Mann but eventually warmed again to him in the 1980s. Mann didn't live long enough for that reconciliation - nor to fall back in love with America. A decade after taking US citizenship in 1944, Mann was dubbed a 'suspected communist' and brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee. There he heard himself described as one of the 'world's foremost apologists for Stalin and company'. A chastened Mann warned his adoptive homeland that, with its embrace of witch-hunts and 'loyalty checks', it was 'well on [its way] to a fascist police state'. To his diary, Mann confessed he was 'shockingly touched by the dwindling sense of justice in this country, the rule of force'. Given that, it doesn't take too much effort to imagine what Thomas Mann would have made of German-American president Donald Trump. As for his literary legacy: given that he died exactly 70 years ago, Mann's works enter the public domain next January to join fellow former Zürich resident James Joyce. Brace yourself for the mash-up, Chat-GPT fan fiction: Leopold Bloom on the Magic Mountain, anyone?
Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
Carl O'Brien: ‘Take a deep breath - the weekend is a time to recharge'
Phew – that was intense. The first few days of the exams really are the hardest. The weekend, thankfully, offers the chance of some much-needed respite for everyone. Leaving Cert students who sat maths paper one on Friday afternoon may well feel deflated . But remember: if it was hard for them, it was hard for lots of others too. Our live coverage of the exams on Friday includes lots of comments from students who really struggled with the content and questions. Examiners tend to mark 'hard' exams easier in order to keep the same proportion of grades from year to year. It's also know as the bell curve . So, there is every chance the marking scheme will take account of this. READ MORE Students Why not take a deep breath – the weekend is an opportunity to recharge. It may be tempting to spend every moment revising, but rest is just as important. Brian Mooney, our guidance counsellor, recommends a balanced approach : review upcoming exams in manageable sessions, and then step away from the books. Take a walk, get exercise, meet up with friends or watch your favourite show: it can do wonders for your focus and mood. Parents For parents, supporting your child can simply involve a calm presence and encouraging downtime. Try to keep the atmosphere relaxed and remind them that it's normal to feel nervous or tired. A favourite meal, a listening ear or a quiet space to work can make all the difference. With balance, support and rest, your child can face the week ahead with greater energy and clarity. Keep going – you're doing great!
Irish Times
9 hours ago
- Irish Times
Comedian Emma Doran on her Leaving Cert: ‘I had just given birth to my daughter 13 days before'
When and where did you sit the Leaving Cert exams? 2003. I went to school at Sancta Maria College in Dublin. I had just given birth to my daughter 13 days before, so I was in a room alone with a supervisor. What is your most vivid Leaving Cert memory? Opening English Paper 1 on the first day, and panic setting in that I wouldn't be able to do it. I was reading it, but nothing was sinking in. I took a deep breath and had a talk to myself. Who was your most influential teacher and why? My drama teacher, Ms Martin, told me I'd be good on television and I never forgot it. I had loads of really kind teachers in sixth year. Another teacher, Ms Hiney, even offered me childcare if I needed it, so that I could do my exams. What was your most difficult subject? Probably honours Irish. I learned an essay that I was doing regardless of what title came up. If it wasn't past tense, I knew I was pretty much lost. READ MORE And your favourite? I loved art, and the fact that you could be tipping away at it all year, and it didn't all come down to one exam. Can you recall what grades or points you received? I forget my PIN for my bank card most days, but I know I got 335 points. How important were the results for you ultimately? At the time, they were very important. I didn't want to repeat the Leaving and put myself under huge pressure to make sure I got into a degree course. In my mind, I had to get a degree and get a good job. I started at the school as a teenager and finished it as a single mother. Getting 'enough' points was a huge personal focus. If I got what I needed, then in my mind, it meant I wasn't a complete failure. What did you go on to do after secondary school? I went to IADT [Institute of Art, Design and Technology] and did a degree in business and arts management. What would you change about the Leaving Cert? Ask me in six years when my son is doing it! What advice would you give to your Leaving Cert self? I don't think 18-year-old me would listen to 40-year-old me, and she'd start asking me what questions came up. I could tell my 18-year-old self that the Leaving Cert doesn't matter, but I feel that would be unfair. In the context of my life [back then], it felt very important. You can't teach hindsight. In conversation with Tony Clayton-Lea. Emma Doran's UK and Ireland tour, Emmaculate , begins next September.
