Mary was an excellent nurse with an immense sense of family
MARY Walsh, who passed away suddenly at her home in Ballingarry, Thurles, on Friday, August 9, 2018, was interred in Enniscorthy Cemetery after Requiem Mass in St. Aidan’s Cathedral on August 16 last.
Mary was born in 1951 in Enniscorthy to Nick and Bridie Walsh, where she grew up on the farm that her father managed for St. John’s Hospital.
She attended the Loreto and Prsentation schools in Enniscorthy and completed her Leaving Certificate, she opted for a career in nursing and she trained in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, where she qualified as a State Registered Nurse, a career well suited to her personal qualities.
While in school she maintained connection with sporting attachments that she had developed during her early teens.
She was a member of the Hilbrook Lawn Tennis Club which was located very close to her home in St. John’s and, as she honed her skills, she became an outstanding junior player in Wexford, and beyond, having won the ladies singles titles in the Open championships of Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford, and was runner-up in Waterford. Her stature in her sport may be gauged from the two ‘Power Sports Star’ awards that she was awarded in 1968 and 1970.
Soon after qualifying as a nurse, Mary embarked on an epic adventure travelling overland through Europe, Middle East, India and on to Singapore in a rickety bus. This was long before the advent of modern communication technologies and she would later recount many amusing, though scary incidents along the way. Later, she travelled to Australia, where she rendezvoused with her brother Nicholas. Tragically, she had to cut her Australian adventure short when she received news that her father had died very suddenly.
Back in Ireland, she looked after her mother in Enniscorthy and Dublin and, in 1980, she returned to her profession when she established her own private nursing home in Dublin. In 2001 she purchased Ardeen Nursing Home in Thurles which she ran until the time of her untimely death.
Mary remained a devoted and caring daughter to the end. Her last known movements on the day previous to her death was to drive from Thurles to Enniscorthy to place flowers on her parents’ grave in readiness for the ‘pattern’ on the following Sunday.
Mary is survived by her daughter, Justine, he son Loughlin, brothers Sean (Essex), Eddie (Dublin), Nicholas (Australia) and Richard (Dick) (Tipperary), sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, relatives, management, staff and residents of Ardeen Nursing Home and friends.