Tributes have been paid to Mrs Bridget Dirrane, the Aran Islander who died on New Year's Eve in Galway at the age of 109.
"She lived through two world wars, seven popes, lots of different currencies and she would have seen the first car and the first aeroplane," the Mayor of Galway, Ms Terry O'Flaherty, said yesterday, as the remains of Mrs Dirrane were removed from St Francis's Community Nursing Home in the city to Rossaveal, for today's funeral on her native island of Inis Mór.
The mayor expressed her condolences to the matron, Ms Rose O'Connor, and staff of the home, where Mrs Dirrane had happily spent the last few years of her long life.
Born the youngest of eight children at Oatquarter, Inis Mór, on November 15th, 1894, Mrs Dirrane, nee Gillan, lived through some of the milestones of the past century. She claimed to have met Pádraig Pearse and other 1916 Rising leaders, and she was arrested by the Black and Tans while on a nursing mission during the War of Independence. She was held at the Bridewell, and later at Mountjoy jail, where she went on hunger strike. She said she also witnessed the hangings of Kevin Barry and Thomas Whelan.
She emigrated to the US in 1927, where she spent several decades, and canvassed for John F. Kennedy during her stay in south Boston. It was in Boston that she met her first husband, Ned Dirrane, a fellow Aran Islander. They had been married for eight years, and had no family, when he died of a heart attack. After her return to Inis Mór in 1966, Bridget married her brother-in-law, Pat, who was a father of three and a widower.
She reared her three nephews, and nursed her second husband when he fell ill. After his death in 1990, Bridget had her two wedding rings bonded together as a symbol of her love for the brothers.
Mrs Dirrane kept in close contact with the Kennedy family, and was visited by both Senator Ted Kennedy, the former US ambassador to Ireland, Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, and Mrs Hillary Clinton. She wrote her autobiography with matron Rose O'Connor and Galway journalist, Jack Mahon, at the age of 103, entitled A Woman of Aran.
