Clare Walls was born in 1924, a time of limited travel and experience; yet hers was a mind that was never limited by boundaries, mental or geographical.
She had a keen interest in all matters political and social and was a woman whose approach to life could transcend any age. Clare was known and loved by a very wide circle of relatives and friends.
They will all tell you that when she spoke to you it was as if there was nobody else in the world: she gave you her full attention. Perhaps it was the politician in her! She loved people and was passionately interested in meaningful exchange.
Born a Colley, into a family of seven, she stayed close to her parents and siblings and was deeply proud of her father and brother and the role they played in the growth of the nation. Her father, Harry Colley, was first elected to the Dáil in 1944. Her brother George Colley, who was to hold several Cabinet positions, was first elected in 1961.
She met her husband, Desmond Walls, while singing in the choir in Clontarf. They were married in 1946. There followed 22 years of bedlam, bliss, boatbuilding, caravans, music, house-moving, mackerel-frying, baby-making, nappy changing, feeding, arguing, philosophising, but most of all loving.
In 1968, when she was 44, her life changed irrevocably. She lost her beloved Dessy in a tragic air crash. He was one of 61 people who died when an Aer Lingus Viscount crashed into the sea near Tuskar Rock off the south-east coast. Clare was a widow with 12 children, the youngest just short of his first birthday. She found inner strength that even she didn't know she had.
For a few years she just put one foot in front of another, struggling to keep the same quality of life for her children. One day she rounded the corner at Slea Head in Co Kerry and found a place of peace, her beloved Coomeenole. After many years, by means of high-finance deals and juggling her life around, she built a new home in one of the most beautiful spots in the world. She spent many happy years there and her open-house policy created a magnetic centre for those of us fortunate enough to have known her.
After Dessy died, Clare left Cork where the family had lived for 10 years and returned to Dublin, creating a home in Sutton. When the youngest of the 12 children was about eight, she returned to work and forged a new career. She worked for a number of years for a correspondence training company, ETA, based in Northumberland Road. In the 1980s she worked for a counselling centre at Stanhope Street and it was there she developed many of the beliefs that were to have a profound effect on her thinking for the rest of her life. She also spent a number of years working for the College for Management Studies in Dame Street.
Given her family background she was, of course, a Fianna Fáil supporter and cumann member for many years - allowing her front garden in Sutton to host the constituency headquarters caravan for the 1977 election. But after the formation of the Progressive Democrats in 1985 she became an active PD member. It was while campaigning door to door for the PDs during the first divorce referendum in 1986 that Clare reached a turning point in her Catholic faith. She found what she described as people's blinkered vision very difficult to take. And while she remained a deeply spiritual person and always considered herself to be a Christian, this experience together with other issues led her to part company with the church.
Clare continued to demonstrate, by the way she lived her life, that love was the most important thing. Clare's family and friends always knew she would be there if you had a problem. She was superb in a crisis, and by God we had a few of them! We all benefited from those wonderful nuggets of wisdom, such as: "Be true to yourself whatever happens"; "Life is a series of choices"; "When you get off that plane, the first person you will meet is yourself"; "No matter what anyone tells me, I take it as a compliment"; "Love is the opposite of fear".
Clare travelled the world on many adventurous holidays and in her later years bought a home in South Africa to be near her youngest son. Typical of her independent approach to her children, "near" meant 400 kilometres away from where he actually lived! She liked the sun and she liked the summer and she liked a good party. In 2004, at her request, we celebrated her 80 years of winter birthdays with a summer party in Kerry. She danced and laughed and enjoyed the attention to the full. We all assumed we'd be back for her 90th.
However, the summer of 2006 was a different story. Her months of illness were extremely difficult for such an independent woman. Being sick and dependent was not her style. She died too soon but was released from a difficult illness on October 18th. A wonderful mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, relative and very dear friend, Clare is missed beyond measure. But we grow stronger, for we are standing on the shoulders of a giant.
SJW