Mary Duggan of Ardcavan in Castlebridge, just outside Wexford town, may be Ireland's oldest person. She will be 106 on her next birthday in April of this year. She lives with her daughter and son-in-law, Maudie and Joe Kehoe, and most of the time "I don't do a tap. I don't go beyond the gate." She has three children, six grandchildren and nine greatgrandchildren and is sound of limb, sight and hearing . She very much enjoyed voting in the last election: "I went down for the voting and I don't know how many men came and asked me for my vote. Of course I said yes to all of them." She and her family are staunch Labour voters, so Brendan Howlin got her number one. Mary has lived in Castlebridge all her life and came from a family of six children. Her father worked on "the cots" - river boats that transported corn, coal and other necessities up and down the Slaney and were moved by "poling". She went to school until she was 12: "All I had was a jotter and a pencil. God help us! We learned nothing that time."
She recalls one of her older brothers emigrating to America when he was 17. "I remember him going off, a right fine chap, and I saw him no more. He became a policeman and got shot during Prohibition. He was married over there with three children. It was the gangsters in America that killed him." Another brother, Jimmy, was taken out of the house by the Black and Tans during the Civil War: "They came and took him out of the house, for no reason. We thought they were going to shoot him, but they didn't, thank God."
She worked in a draper's shop in Wexford before moving to Dublin where she got a job "housekeeping" in a house in Bushy Park. Her favourite memory is "the excitement" of her wedding day: "I got married in Dublin in the chapel at the top of the road. My friend was the bridesmaid and her husband was the best man. The four of us had a good breakfast after, and that was it. We didn't have a honeymoon. Life was different then."
Her husband James was from Wexford so the two settled back in Castlebridge in the house where she still lives: "My husband was a fowl man. He got the fowl from the farmers and then he went to the markets." Her sister died leaving three small children so Mary took them in with her own three: "I had three girls and three boys and they were all young, all the one size." She still reads a good deal and is particularly fond of Ireland's Own. She remarks that John Ryan, a native of Tipperary who is almost as old as she is, appeared in a recent issue: "They said he was their oldest reader, but he was 105 only the other day."
Lilian Corry (100) is from Miltown near Tuam in Co Galway and now lives in Glenaulin Nursing Home in Lucan, Co Dublin. Lilian's mother "worshipped Michael Collins" and "she conveyed that great love to me. We had pictures of him everywhere." She remembers an evening in the cinema with Jim, her fiance, when "the message came through about Collins being shot. I cried. Jim said: `Michael Collins is gone and her heart is gone with him'." Her feelings are quite different for Dev: "He was a big long hank of misery."
Lilian still has a good singing voice and regales me with Let Him Go, Let Him Tarry, remembering all the words. She used to play Danny Boy on the piano for Jim when he was ill with TB. She even brought him to Switzerland to help him recover, but he didn't survive. He died when they had been married for only a year and a half. She also lost a sister from TB. After becoming a widow Lilian went into politics. She was private secretary to William Norton during his long leadership of the Labour Party which began in 1932: "It was a great uplift for me when he became a Minister," she says. (He was Tanaiste and Minister for Social Welfare 1948-51, and Tanaiste and Minister for Industry and Commerce 1954-57). She is not so impressed with today's Labour leaders though - neither Dick Spring nor Ruairi Quinn inspire much interest or enthusiasm. She is equally noncommittal about being on the verge of living into her third century. When I say "it's remarkable", she replies simply: " 'Tis."
Rose Maguire (100), from Butlersbridge, Co Cavan, is a Fianna Fail supporter. Charles Haughey is her hero: "I like Charlie, he was good to me. He got me my pension. He didn't do those things, they said." Rose, an only child, was orphaned when she was 11, and was looked after by the nuns. Soon she was "hired out" and worked on a dairy farm, milking the cows and working in the fields. Through a local contact she was offered a job in the kitchens of Steevens's Hospital in Dublin where she remained for the rest of her working life, getting regular promotions until she became special assistant to the doctors. She never married.
When asked about the secret of her longevity she replies: "That's no secret. I just worked and got on. I thought I'd have died years ago." She is now living at the Marymount Nursing Home in Lucan: "I have no regrets. I'm all right here. This is my home now." When pressed for a last word, Esther Hesselberg obliges with a smile: "If we're destined to live, we live. I've bluffed my way through life. I'm an old hand. I never broke the rules. I got through."