My dearest Mammy,

YOU will be dead 50 years come May 12 and I still cry when I think of you. I was only 17 years old and I still miss you so much. I would love to have you back just for a little while to hug and kiss you and tell you how much I miss you and love you.

I was only beginning to know you as a very special Mammy. I can remember well the evening we were sitting at the fire talking. I can’t remember what it was about, but I wanted to say something and in the middle of it I called you Bride, your real name instead of Mammy and you nearly lost your false teeth laughing,

I never in my wildest dreams thought you would be taken from me, my two sisters and my dad. I wasn’t old enough to ask questions and learn all about you. I thought I had you for life but the good Lord, who I have been very cross with for taking you from us, had different ideas and wanted you in heaven. But I wanted you and needed you here.

John, my future husband, was the only person who kept me sane at that terrible time. I needed you on my wedding day, there was no one to fix my dress or veil, no one to come walking down the hill with me. When Dad walked me to the church I needed you then and I needed you when my four children were born, with no one to advise me how to look after and mind my babies.

You never got the chance to see your grandchildren — you have eight, four boys and four girls, and I know you would have loved each of them, and you have 13 great-grandchildren so far and another on the way.

We called our daughter Bridget after you. Only last week I was going through old photographs and things I had kept, and I came across a letter you had written to me when the three of us were up in Kilmacurra at an Irish school. Even though we lived only one mile down the road, we were boarders there.

That letter was dated 1961 and in it, you told me my dog Rover and my pet rabbit Joey were asking for me, and being the animal lover I am, I was very happy to hear that. It’s only now I think back and appreciate all the places you took us to, like Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin, and St Kevin’s Bed up on the rock face at the Upper Lake in Glendalough. They are two places people can no longer go to: one was blown up and the other for health and safety reasons. You took us to Dublin to see the Seven Wonders of the World and The

Sound of Music to name but a few. It is great to look back and remember all those places you and Daddy brought us to. My love always for the great times.

Love Carmel. Carmel Salley, Kilbride, Wicklow