Mayo woman passes away at the age of 107

A Mayo woman who is believed to be Ireland’s second oldest person has passed away at the age of 107.

Bridget (Bridie) Colleary, of Lacken, Enniscrone, Co Sligo, and formerly of Carnalough, Bonniconlon, Co Mayo, was four months shy of her 108th birthday when she died.

She passed away peacefully in her residence surrounded by her loving family.

A quiet and unassuming lady, Bridie was a devoted and loving mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

“She would have been 108 in December,” her son Val told the Western People.

Born Bridget Loftus in December 1918, she grew up in Carnalough, Bonniconlon with six sisters and a brother. She and four of her siblings emigrated to England but Bridget was to return and marry in 1952.

An incredibly resilient woman, Bridie's life was touched by heartbreaking tragedy.

Her beloved husband Paddy died in a motorbike accident at Christmas time in 1961. He was just 42-years old.

“They had only been married for nine years,” said Val.

Bridie was left a widow with five children to rear.

“She continued to keep us going and did all the usual things you have to do for your family. She was a really hard worker,” said Val.

“She grew her own spuds, went to the bog, and looked after her own turf. She would cycle from the house here up to the bog and turn the turf and foot the turf. When we got bigger, we were able to help her, but she was going a lot of that on her own,” he said.

In 1983, Bridie lost her eldest daughter Mary and her three-year old granddaughter Sheena in a road accident.

“Mary had been nursing in Dublin and was married in Dublin. She was coming down for a week’s holiday, and she got killed in a tragic accident in Longford. Both Mary and her daughter Sheena died, Sheena was only three. That was an awful blow for my Mum to lose both her daughter and her granddaughter,” said Val.

“But she got on with things. She was a very resilient woman. She always said, ‘Look you have no choice to get on with life,’ and she did,” added Val.

Bridie was in remarkably good health throughout her life.

“The first time I remember her ever going to a doctor she was 95!” said Val.

When she was 99 she broke her hip and that was the first time she had ever been admitted to a hospital with all her children born at home, “They had no records of her at all,” said Val.

In more recent years, Bridie had still been managing to live largely independently in an apartment connected to Val’s home.

“She was good really right up until a couple of weeks ago,” he said.

“She was a remarkable woman who was blessed with good healthy really. We would often say to her you should go to the doctor if she had a small ailment and she always say, ‘Not at all, I had this before. It’ll go away’."

Born in 1918, Bridie lived through two pandemics in the Spanish Flu and Covid-19.

Despite living in Enniscrone for so many years, Bridget was a proud Mayo woman who liked to follow the fortunes of her county’s GAA team.

“She would have been one of very few people who would have seen Mayo win four All-Irelands. If Mayo were playing she would have been interested, even though she was living in Sligo for years. She knew her roots were in Mayo,” said Val.

Bridie was predeceased by her husband Paddy, their daughter Mary, grandchild Sheena, parents Belinda and William Loftus, sisters May, Nora, Lizzie, Aggie, Eileen and Kitty, brother Mike and son-in-law Mike Walsh.

She was the beloved mother of P. (Margaret McEvoy), Betty (Tom O’Hara), Esther (Pat Boyle) and Val (Valerie Duffy), and will be greatly missed by her sons, daughters, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, grandchildren, great grandchildren, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends.

Reposal takes place at McGowan’s Funeral Home this evening (Monday).

Requiem Mass will be at the Church of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven, Enniscrone tomorrow at 11am, followed by burial in St Patrick’s cemetery, Kilglass.