HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY NANCY!
AS SHE CELEBRATES HER 100TH BIRTHDAY, BRAY RESIDENT NANCY O’BRIEN TELLS MARY FOGARTY ABOUT HER LIFE SO FAR AND HOW MUCH THINGS HAVE CHANGED
Nancy O’Brien, who has been on this earth for 100 years, would light up a room with her beautiful smile.
With a century of wisdom under her belt, she has revealed the secret to a long life.
‘Hard work,’ she said. ‘And no men!’ Nancy, who has lived in Cois Cairn in Bray for more than 20 years, celebrated her 100th birthday on Monday, September 28.
‘I had a great weekend,’ she said. Her nieces and nephews came to see her on Sunday, and the team from Shankill Day Care Centre came on Monday, with cake, flowers and cards.
The house currently has more in common with a florist shop than a home, with all the lovely balloons and bouquets.
A letter from President of Ireland Michael D Higgins acknowledged the part she played in shaping today’s world, ‘ bringing your own energy, experience and wisdom to your work, family and community life’.
‘I came from Rochestown Avenue, I was born and reared in a small cottage there,’ said Nancy. ‘It’s all demolished now.’
After her parents passed away, she moved to Cabinteely, staying there for 28 years. There were too many stairs to climb, so she came then to Bray and her bungalow in Cois Cairn.
Over 100 years, she has seen immense change. Television, for example, wasn’t invented until Nancy was seven years old. Home Rule was established here the year she was born, the ‘Black & Tans’ were recruited in Ireland, and the country was recovering from Spanish Flu, a virus which had claimed 50 million lives worldwide, including that of Nancy’s own sister. The jazz era saw the ’20s ‘roaring’ across the pond in America, but on Irish shores, there were struggles.
‘Life wasn’t as good then as it is now,’ said Nancy. ‘I think it’s much better now altogether. It was lovely alright, but things are better now I think. We had no electric or anything – just the lamps on the wall! It was different altogether, simple times.
‘We made our own fun, playing tig and skipping and those kinds of things though.’
She said that people didn’t have much in those days and they worked very hard.
Nancy worked in Blackrock for Glen Abbey Hosiery making nylons, working on the machines for 44 years. ‘That’s the only job I had,’ she said. ‘I retired at 62.
‘I didn’t really miss work. I was delighted to get going; I was after working so long. I was glad to do my own thing, I was free to do everything.’
She loved to go to see people, and her favourite pastime of all was gardening.
‘I’m not able for it now. I was very fond of a bit of gardening.’
She was gifted with green fingers, and could make anything grow, having inherited her skill from her gardener father.
While still working, Nancy loved to go to dances at the weekends, be it to the International in Bray or dance halls in Dublin City.
‘There was lovely entertainment there,’ she said. ‘I like to dance a little bit. We had a little few drinks and we enjoyed ourselves. My sister used to come with her husband. Every weekend we’d go somewhere, we’d have a great time.’
They also went on holidays around Ireland, including tours of Wicklow with Bus Eireann.
She was just a baby during the War of Independence and at the foundation of the State – far too young to recall any great understanding or fear. She has some snippets of memories, and stories from her mother and father.
‘My father worked in the gas company first when we were very small. The English came over that time. My father was going to work one morning, he had a little bottle of milk on him. They thought it was a gun or something – they were going to shoot him.
‘A lady came out of a lodge, she knew him, and she came out and said – this man is alright he’s only going to work.’
Nancy said that the policemen used to come in to her mother.
‘My mother had a big photograph of Robert Emmett and Fr Murphy and all those,’ said Nancy. ‘The policeman said to her “you’d better take that down; if the English see that they’ll shoot you”. ‘So she had to take them down.’ The most significant historical period of her life so far was undoubtedly World War II.
‘I used to smoke then,’ said Nancy. ‘The cigarettes used to come from England, there was no cigarettes in the shops!’
She remembers coming home from work on her bike along with friends, the date being December 20, 1940.
‘We heard bombs going off. That was down in Sandycove,’ she said.
‘All the people’s windows were shattered in. There was a big hole in the ground.’
Two bombs were dropped on Sandycove that day, causing damage to ESB wires and gas mains.
Her father was in the railway station at the time, and had a narrow escape.
‘He was very lucky,’ said Nancy. ‘It was just outside the station. The whole ground was ripped up, he didn’t know where to go.’
There were lively, happy times in her family home though, with music set-dancing throughout the night.
‘My parents used to have the Irish dancing – half sets, whole sets,’ said Nancy. ‘There would be an all-night dance. The people would stay until morning. My father played the flute and we had a lovely singer who came from Donegal, he was a friend of ours.’
Today, Nancy is witnessing another of the world’s most astonishing moments in history, the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘I don’t go out very much now,’ she said. ‘I just go out sometimes, down to the doctor.’
Before the virus came, she would be out much more often.
‘I’m used to staying at home now. I really don’t feel the day going by at all. Sometimes I do a bit of sewing, and I read an awful lot – I go to bed at 11 and could read until 1. I like good murder stories, or detective books.’
Nancy is the very embodiment of the patience displayed over the last six months by Ireland’s most precious people, who have been asked to stay home to be protected from Covid-19.
‘I’m very happy on my own, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m not a bit lonely. I get up in the morning, then it’s nearly time to go to bed when I’ve everything done.’
While she suffers with a painful, bad back, Nancy is cheerful nonetheless.
‘It is very sore, I’m in agony with it when I walk,’ she said. ‘But I have to put up with it – I just keep going!’
Her neighbours, along with all of her friends and family, play a part in ensuring that Nancy can keep going in some measure of comfort.
‘I have one great neighbour and she’s absolutely marvellous. She does everything for me. She does all my messages and she’ll clean the house up.’
One thing she misses terribly is going to Shankill Day Care Centre.
‘They were out on Monday, the whole crowd of them. We had a great day out in the garden, it was lovely. I love to go there and I miss it an awful lot for a chat.’
If Nancy could impress one message on the young people, passing on the knowledge she has earned over 100 years, it is this: ‘Be happy,’ she said. ‘And look after one another.’