Maureen Mernagh was the personification of dedication and service
MAUREEN MERNAGH, late of Forristalstown, Glenmore, Co. Kilkenny, departed this life on December 15, at the ripe age of 96.
She was born to Peter and May Mernagh on April 23, 1925, the first of ten children.
Maureen attended Shanbogh National School. After primary school Maureen attended the Holy Faith Convent in Rosbercon.
She continued to excel in her studies and completed her Leaving Certificate examination in 1943 with very good results.
When she informed her mother that she had chosen Nursing as a career, she was told she had chosen a tough career in an attempt to put her off. So, in the conversation her mother said: ‘You know you’ll have to wash and shave dead men.’ Maureen’s retort was emphatic: ‘I’d rather shave a dead man than a live one’. End of discussion.
She headed for London in the autumn of 1943, in the middle of World War II, to commence her nursing career. At that time an essential part of the nurses’ uniform was the watch pinned to its front, and Maureen was presented with the watch by her very kind neighbour, Mrs Molly Doherty.
Molly’s daughter, Margaret, who was nursing in London at that time, met her at Paddington Station in London. Maureen started her nursing career at St. Olave’s Hospital in Rotherhithe, London SE16, and continued there until her retirement forty years later in 1983. London and England were not the nicest or safest places to be in wartime, with bombs dropping, scarcity in everything and food rationing, but Maureen dealt with the situation as she found it.
Home and family were never far from her thoughts, so she was a regular visitor back to Glenmore when circumstances permitted. She studied hard as a student nurse and passed all her exams as her career progressed.
It gave her mother a lot of joy and pride to see Maureen progress, and she loved to address her letters to her as Nurse Maureen Mernagh, SRN. The title changed to Sister Maureen Mernagh as she progressed, but the letters SRN were cherished and meant so much to both.
Maureen later went on to be known as Sister Tutor, and in that capacity taught and trained the new intake of nurses every year.
With the development of the NHS and the increasing demands on the hospital services, it was decided to amalgamate the hospitals into groups consistent with location, and St. Olave’s became part of the Guys Hospital group.
Because of her tutoring role it was decided that it made sense for Maureen to be involved in recruiting trainees and students for the group, and this resulted in her embarking on successful recruitment drives in Ireland.
On the home-front Maureen was always to the front of mother’s mind and she wanted to ensure that the scarcity in foodstuffs in London would be offset where possible.
One Christmas it was decided to send her a turkey for the festivities, but unfortunately the vagaries of the postal service scuppered the plan because when the parcel arrived it was, to quote Maureen, ‘inedible’. Her disconsolate mother wanted to know what that meant! That was the end of the turkeys at Christmas.
St. Patrick’s Day saw shamrock picked by her siblings, boxed and sent fresh to Maureen in London for the big day.
On the social side of her life in south-east London Maureen kept faithfully in touch with her religion and was involved in the local parish as well as assisting with the chaplaincy requirements in the hospital. One of the Irish priests who she used to assist on a regular basis was a Fr O’Shea from the Piltown area, a relation of Fr O’Shea who was P.P. in Glenmore in the late Seventies, early Eighties.
Another aspect of her social life was caring for the gardens at the hospital because of her love for plants and flowers.
Maureen also had a great eye for fashion and anyone who knew her can bear testament to her great sense of style and her immaculate appearance. Proof of this is when she won a car in a newspaper fashion competition – an Austin Mini! In keeping with her altruistic character, the car was left in Forristalstown so that her mother and father could be transported to Mass every Sunday and whenever else required.
Maureen saw it as her duty to help with financial requirements back home, so the remittances would arrive on a regular basis and her mother would see they were put to good use subsidising the food and clothing bills for the household.
The other practice that she was noted for was remembering everybody’s birthday, and it was a source of great excitement to her younger siblings in the family when their birthday approached.
Of course, the financial content of the letter was their major focus, and they were never disappointed. In time she would continue to do this for her many nieces and nephews. In fact, Maureen liked to keep in touch with everyone in the family and kept a record of everybody’s birthday and any other special occasion so that nobody was ever forgotten.
She was concerned about the hardships for the family of cooking for a crowd over an open fire, so she purchased an oil-fired cooker which proved an absolute boon to her mother as it made cooking so much easier and safer. A short few years later she replaced this with a modern gas cooker.
As the years advanced, she was concerned about the health and safety of her parents and she arranged for the installation of the telephone so she could be in constant communication with them, and every night she would ring from the hospital call box to ensure they were both Maureen regularly visited family who had moved to live in England.
On her retirement in 1983 Maureen returned home to look after her parents and made the last years of their lives very happy and comfortable. She combined those duties with helping to transport the next generation to Shanbogh school, further developing her great cooking skills, and adding to the garden in Forristalstown; where her begonias were a joy to behold!
Shortly after returning home she was diagnosed with cancer which necessitated major surgery and subsequent radiotherapy treatment in St Luke’s in Dublin, and, in typical Maureen Mernagh style, she would drive to Dublin on her own, have her treatment, and drive home again, refusing any offers of help! It had to be done, so she did it.
With the passing of her parents in 1990 and 1992, Maureen was faced with another big change in her life: from having two old, infirm people to care for, she was now alone with too much time on her hands. But, of course, that situation was not to last - a new role awaited.
A sacristan was needed in the church in Glenmore, and guess who got roped in? The care of the Church and preparation for ceremonies and all that went with them became her mission and life until such time as she could no longer physically function. The needs of the church were first, last, and centre on her list, and she spent more and more time there as the years went by.
The church authorities recognised her dedication and service over many years, both at home and during her time in London, and she was awarded the Bene Merenti Medal in recognition of her service.
As impossible as it seems, Maureen’s life can be summed up in two words: dedication and service. She was the personification of both.
In the words of Seneca: ‘As is a tale, so is a life: Not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.’
Maureen Mernagh, 1925 to 2021; Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam uasal.