Mrs Mary Gallagher,RIP,Kilmoreen Kildimo,Co Limerick
The late Mary Gallagher (nee Monkton) was the first and longest-lived of the five children born to Michael and Margaret Monckton (nee Nash) who came from the Garrison. She pursued her education at the National School in Shountrade under the guidance of Master Neville and Miss Collins where she gained a lifelong love for her native tongue. The latter teacher saw the potential in Mary for secretarial work and groomed her for such a position in Park Gate Street, Dublin. The young Mary found difficulty in adjusting to city life and pined for home as she demonstrated in all her letters to her parents. Eventually her father relented and she returned to Kilmoreen, from which she never moved. Having a strong caring nature, she nursed her grandmother Ann Monckton until her death in 1938. These early years saw her also assisting her father in laying out deceased neighbours in the era before funeral undertakers developed their art and later their funeral parlours. Her close relationship with her father also ensured that she imbibed from him his love of politics. Her first of many votes was cast in 1938 and regularly thereafter over the next seventy four years, exercising her latest franchise in 2011. During all those years, Mary took a keen interest in electoral events and constantly acted as ‘Personating Agent’ for her favourite party.
Mary’s marriage to Stephen Gallagher of Ballysteen took place in 1946, when they both took on the running of the family farm in Kilmoreen. One of their shared interests was the breeding of greyhounds and their expertise produced many a promising hound whose sale helped to supplement the farm income during the post-war years. During this time they produced six children and Mary presided over her extending family alone following Stephen’s death.
For her relaxation Mary loved a game of Whist, at which she was adept and no distance deterred her from that pleasure. When the popularity of that game receeded, she transferred her interest to Bingo and she joined the bus to Rathkeale up to recent times.
Due to the Gallagher family’s penchant for Gaelic football, the late Mary was a regular follower of both hurling and football and in early times travelled by horse and flat cart to games in Adare and Croom. With the participation of her own children, Mary could be counted on to lend her vocal support when the team togged out in blue and white.
Mrs Gallagher enjoyed a relatively healthy life until the last, surrounded by her family and visited daily by Rose McKeogh. She had the comfort of her family around her as she reached her last hurdle and she passed away in the home she loved among the family she cherished. She is sadly missed by her grieving family, her sons Gerard, Vincent, Seamus and Brendan and her daughters Margaret (nee Hoffman) in Scotland and Concepta (nee Kennelly) in Kilcolman.
‘ Táimse im chodhladh ‘s ná dúistear mé ’
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