Greg Daly
The bells of St Brigid’s Church in Ballintrillick, Co. Sligo, rang 108 times to mark the funeral of Ireland’s oldest person last week, with each chime marking a year of her life.
Elizabeth Gallagher, who was buried on March 28, became the oldest person in Ireland last December, and was “very proud” of the fact, according to parish priest Fr Thomas Keogan, who told The Irish Catholic “she was very conscious that she herself was history in the making”.
Describing Mrs Gallagher as someone who “had a very strong faith and was deeply religious”, Fr Keogan said. “Whenever I went to visit her, the beads and the prayerbook were always in her hand.”
An unusual aspect of Mrs Gallagher’s funeral, he added, and one that Mrs Gallagher’s family appreciated, was how the children from the local St Aidan’s National School had lined up along the front wall of the school, forming “a guard of honour to the memory of a truly wonderful woman”.