FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
My mother, Brigid Moran, who passed away in 2004, in her 93rd year, spent the last six years of her life in a nursing home – Drakelands Nursing Home. At a time when nursing homes are getting a bad press I want to say how happy and contented my mother was in Drakelands (and later my mother-in-law, Mrs Anna Murphy, who passed away there in her 99th year). And all thanks to Bobby and Breda Quinn, the original owners, and later Ann Fleck-Byrne and her husband Chris. Always activities to beat the band, including bands, there was never a dull moment in Drakelands. Belated thanks to you, Bobby, Breda, Ann and Chris and your wonderful staff.
And so, in 2025, the 21st anniversary of my mother’s passing, and the month of her birthday, and in her honour – I present this edited version of the eulogy I delivered at her funeral service:
A few years ago I was attending a course when our tutor handed us a blank sheet of A4 paper and asked us to create our very own, original Family Crest. I was stumped. How should I represent our family on one small sheet of paper? And then I started drawing furiously. What I drew was a huge oak tree that dominated the entire page. That oak tree represented my mother: Brigid Moran – a tower of strength, a mighty woman just like the mighty oak. And like the mighty oak our mother, through her self- belief attained, I believe, her full potential as a proud parent, caring wife and loving mother. Brigid was in her 93rd year when she died – a mighty age but then she was a mighty woman.
And just as she propelled herself though life, she similarly, along with our father, propelled us, her children, allowing us every opportunity to fulfill our potential. Strong and resilient as our mother was, she was also soft and sentimental. Tears came easily to Brigid Moran and always when my children visited she’d rummage in her purse for a few coins or notes: “A little something,” she’d say, “to gladden a small child’s heart”.
For the last six years of her life our mother lived in a palace. Appropriate for a lady who liked a bit of style, who prided herself on her dress sense and who, when it came to fancy dress, dressed up as, no lesser a person, than the Queen Mother of England. The palace, of course, was not Buckingham Palace, it was once the Bishop of Ossory’s dwelling, known locally as ‘The Bishop’s Palace’, now Drakelands Nursing Home.
On her 90th birthday, we proposed three toasts to our mother: First, we toasted her physical strength and stamina that got her to such a great, able and alert age. Our second toast was to her mental strength and stamina, our mother was as sharp as a razor. You could not pull the wool over Brigid’s eyes. Even in latter years, when her eyesight wasn’t the best, she could still spot a stain on your jacket or notice how tired you looked.
Our third and final toast was to her spirituality, her religion. Our mother’s faith was unwavering, unshakeable. They didn’t come more devout than Brigid. A daily Mass-goer she was still going to confession up to a few weeks before her death. Mind you, it has always been a mystery to us, her family, as to what sins a 93-year-old woman would have to confess!
Our mother was a woman ahead of her time. When it was unfashionable for married women to work outside the home – our mother worked. An excellent book-keeper, she never had to look for employment, employers came looking for her.
“Never touch a pin that doesn’t belong to you” and “Do nothing, unless you do it well” were two of her golden rules. I like to think that she passed those standards on to us, her children. Indeed if we, her children, her grand-children and her great-grand-children are only half the person she was we’ll be doing well in life.
Brigid Moran – proud parent, exceptional mother, mighty woman, thank you for everything because for certain sure, Ni bheidh do leithéid ann arís.
