Mary Gannon receiving the Benemerenti medal in her parish Personal Profile
In August 2019 Mary Gannon was asked by her parish priest, Fr Odhran Furlong, to come up to him after Thursday morning Mass. He told her that at 11am on Sunday, Bishop Denis Brennan would be presenting her with the Benemerenti medal.
“It was unbelievable really because it was something that I never expected,” Mary tells to The Irish Catholic.
“My legs were shaking they were. I didn’t know what to say, it was such an honour to be given to someone like me.
“I’m just an ordinary wife, mother, doing a little bit of work in the parish, I don’t know what they saw in it.”
Mary has been a part of St Aidan’s parish in Enniscorthy for almost her whole life, apart from a few years spent in Dublin. She will be celebrating her birthday on April 17, four days before her husband Richard.
They married a month before their 21st birthday, making this March their 50th wedding anniversary. Both are heavily involved in the parish, with Mary being a key member of the Legion of Mary and Richard the coordinator of the Eucharistic ministers.
Mary says that their faith as well as the support from their parish helped them through some very tough times. They had four children together over the years, Martin and Richard and then the third was Michael.
“We got the devastating news that he had a brain condition and that he might not live, it was possible that he might die before birth or shortly after. I carried him for seven months and then he was born stillborn.
“That was a very low time in our lives, a very sad time but with a lot of support and a lot of help and a lot of prayer we got through it.”
In 1996 Mary became pregnant again “We were so thrilled it was wonderful,” she says. However after their first scan they were told it was rare to happen twice but the same condition had happened again.
“I carried my daughter, I was always wanting a little girl. I carried her for the full nine months and I’ll always remember at the time them saying to me: ‘I wish there was something I could do for you’.
“I didn’t know what they meant by that but I wasn’t going to part with my child and so I kept her close to my heart,” she says. Their daughter was stillborn on January 6, 1996.
She says it made her a stronger person and being able to lift people up is what keeps her going. “In the midst of it all, the grace of God gives you the courage to go on.
“I was lucky that a few priests happened to be in the hospital and I was blessed that they came. I felt that that was like Jesus himself coming to me.”
Recently Mary got news that her eldest son and his wife of 10 years have had their second scan and going to have a baby. She has three other grandchildren and like many, is finding it difficult to be away from them at the minute while she is cocooning.
Mary grew up in Enniscorthy and went to school in the Presentation college there. She says she still has a wooden crucifix that she won in a draw where she could pick any religious object she wanted from the nuns desk on her last day at school.
She was from a family of six. In 1985, one of her two brothers was killed in a head on collision on the Wexford Road. He had hurt his leg and was on the way back from the hospital.
“The plaster was still wet on his leg so they just said be careful. He was sitting in the passenger seat and a car that was going to Wexford ploughed into him and killed him,” says Mary. His neighbour was driving and his wife was in the back seat – both of whom survived.
The administrator of St Aidan’s at the time, Fr Thomas Eustace, happened to be on his way down to Wexford that day. “He came upon the accident,” says Mary.
“He had a priest with him and Fr Eustace told me afterwards that he whispered the act of contrition into his ear. That was a wonderful consolation,”
Mary, since joining the Legion of Mary in her parish almost 38 years ago does a lot for the community. She has been organising the parish bus for several years for pilgrimages, to the pro-life march, the Eucharistic congress and to the World Meeting of Families. She helps bring people from the community hospital to the oratory every Saturday for Mass and started a prayer hour for vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
“Being involved in parish life is lovely because you can reach out to people and people get to know you and they know that they can come to you. A lot of the time it’s just about listening and as they’re telling you their problem you can say a little prayer that you’ll be guided to give them a little bit of encouragement in your words. That God’s Holy Spirit will help you in some way give a word of encouragement to some people, I think it can uplift them in some way.”
She was delighted to receive the award, which is hanging framed in her home, and will continue to do her work, as she promised Our Lady she would organise a coach to Knock and Our Lady’s Island every year she is alive
“It uplifts the whole parish when someone gets something like a medal, it gives people a lift and it just shows you that an ordinary little person can do things no matter how small. And it seems to count in the life of the Church in the parish.”