In the world of journalism, awards abound. But Mary Cummins enjoyed a distinction so rare it beggars belief. She launched her career in 1970 on the strength of a single letter to The Irish Times asking for a job. Donal Foley, the then news editor, read it, laughed, paused, read it again. It was from some nurse who wanted to be a journalist, he said, and was so good he thought she should have a chance.
He passed the letter around and all present agreed. She wrote with ease, wit and a truly gifted touch for an unexpected, telling description. But it was the exuberant, free-wheeling style that was arresting. It's a high-risk approach, very difficult to do well. At the top of her form, and she was there often, no one did it better than Mary Cummins.
She always said it was encouragement from Vincent Browne, then in Nusight magazine, and Anne Harris, then in the Irish Press, that set her sights on The Irish Times. Despite a short period in England in the 1970s, she never left it in spirit again.
She never stopped thinking in terms of stories, either. Sitting in a hospital bed a few days before her death, she was speculating on unexplored angles in the John Ellis business and ways to follow up the nurses' strike.
It is the lot of daily newspaper journalists to write and be forgotten, which makes the stock of Mary Cummins's memorable work all the more impressive - the series on nursing which brought the dim world of hospital nights alive, or the piece on the Laura Ashley dress that evoked the whole of the 1970s in London, or the tender and understated recollection of family life in the Garda barracks with "my father, the sergeant".
Or the inside story of a travelling woman's day. In 1985, Mary Cummins, wrapped in a plaid shawl that set off her wild red curls and hoop earrings, went out begging door-to-door and reported on how it felt to have coins thrust into your hand by people who never looked you in the eye.
She was eccentric, passionately involved in her work, and brave about voicing strong, unpredictable and often contrary opinions. At one time or another, she infuriated most of her colleagues. But she was like no one else. For that, for her warmth and loyalty, and for her rich, dark and exquisitely self-deprecating humour, she was uniquely cherished.
She deserves the final word. Years ago when the staff of The Irish Times were asked to supply biographical details for their own obituaries, Mary Cummins was one of the few who not only obliged but composed the essay.
After the factual essentials - daughter of William and Sheila Cummins, sister of Kathleen, Sheila, Liam and Patrick - she writes that she was born at 10 a.m. on a Sunday in Castletownshend, Co Cork, "but because of her father's job the family moved around a bit.
"They spent four years in Knocknagoshel, Co Kerry, famous for football and the flag it marched behind to a Parnellite rally: `Arise Knocknagoshel and take your place among the nations of the earth.'
"The family finally moved to Ballybunion, Co Kerry, in the late 1950s, where the bould Mary learned about courting in the sandhills and jiving in the Central Ballroom . . .Brendan Kennelly, who is from Ballylongford, christened her `The Sergeant's Daughter', because he said she was known as such in the Central where all the yobbos like himself were afraid to ask her to dance.
"After an erratic but brilliant (except maths) career at St Joseph's Secondary School in Ballybunion (Mercy nuns) she tried shorthand and typing (three months), the Department of Lands in the Civil Service (six months; she came 666th in the clerical officer's exam for the Civil Service which must be a record of sorts).
"Her daughter Daisy was born on March 3rd, 1974, also on a Sunday morning, just a minute short of 10 a.m. The doctors had all been saying she wouldn't be born until the afternoon but Mary Cummins believed in the power of coincidence and was proved right. Daisy is her pride and joy.
"For further details see novels, memoirs etc. (Yet to be published.)"
Mary Cummins is survived by her daughter Daisy, sisters Kathleen and Sheila and brothers Liam and Patrick.
Mary Cummins: born 1944; died November, 1999