LilyDevinewasakindandcaringlady
THE Crossabeg community suffered a great loss on June 27 when they learned of the passing of their kind and caring neighbour Lily Devine.
Ballydicken House, her majestic home and farm, overlooking the bend in the Slaney, the Deeps Castle and Killurin Bridge was a place that she loved and continued to love until her death when she died peacefully there aged 92 last week.
Lily O’Mahony from Terenure in Dublin knew about Ballydicken by the river Slaney in Wexford on visits there in her childhood. When she met her husband to be James Devine in the city back in the 1940s she said ‘I’m not staying here and he’s not staying here either’. So they upped sticks and came to live down by the river where the poaching of salmon originated. Her friend and relation Fr Danny McDonald told the congregation her story at her funeral mass at a thronged Crossabeg church.
He said Lily was an example of goodness who enjoyed the simple things in life. Very upmarket things didn’t matter to Lily. She was central to her community and met with her friends and her neighbours regularly. She had time for everyone and the people she met every week were so important to her in her life.
At patron time she made it her business to find out the people that she didn’t see from one end of the year to the other. She made a commitment to make contact with them again to see how they were, to see how their family members were and to see how people who lost their own loved ones were.
Fr McDonald said that young people could take example from her life, her care, her goodness and her kindness and the simple things and live well.
‘Elderly people have their contribution to make. They can show in example and in passing on what’s right and wrong through life. The people who went before us prepared a place for each one of us.’
Her game of cards was important to her as well and she coped with the many nights of trickery with good humour. She had a keen interest in her family history which stretched from Terenure to Bohernabreena in the Dublin mountains to Wexford.
The church choir performed some of Lily’s favourite hymns including The Old Rugged Cross, Going Home and Amazing Grace while Fr. Jim Finn,PP and altar servers and mourners led the congregation of more than 150 people to her final resting place beside the church.
Lily Devine, wife of the late James, is survived by her children James, Alice and Rhona, son-in-law Dave, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, sisters Mary and Imelda and nieces, and nephews.