Eileen “Nell” Hynes, who was Ireland’s oldest person, has died at the age of 109 and 171 days.
She was born as Eileen Kelly on December 15th, 1916, in Cullenwaine, near Moneygall in Co Offaly.
Hynes had 10 children. Bernie, the youngest is 67, and Pat, the eldest, is 85.
She has 102 direct descendants still alive, her 10 children, 30 grandchildren, 55 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.
RM Block
Her cousin, Fr Michael Enright, said Hynes was determined to make it 110 so she could hand out 10 commemorative medals to her children for each of the years she lived past 100, “but the Lord took her”.
She died peacefully in her sleep at home, the priest added, after being in Tullamore hospital for a few weeks.
“She went downhill after leaving the hospital,” he said.
The priest put his cousin’s extreme longevity down to “taking everything in her stride” and a prayerful life – she was still attending nightly Mass at 8pm until a few weeks ago.
[ Ireland’s oldest man: the two things he attributes his long life toOpens in new window ]
Speaking to The Irish Times on the occasion of her 109th birthday last December, she credited her long life to “hard work, no smoking and no drinking”.
Hynes was born before the State came into existence and was, until her death, likely one of few people left who had memories of the War of Independence.
She also was a victim of the State’s misogynistic marriage bar policy during her life. She had been working in the post office but had to give up her job when she got married at the age of 23 to her husband William.
She told The Irish Times in January “that was the way things were at the time” and she “just had to get on with it”.
Life at home was busy enough, she said, and once she started raising her family she didn’t have time to look back and wish she could have kept working.
Enright said the State reduced her contributory pension to a non-contributory pension five years ago and only restored it in the last year.
In her last year of life, she had a special visitor; Daniel O’Donnell came to see her in March.
According to the Gerontology website, which tracks longevity around the world, the oldest living person in Ireland is now 108-year-old Sr Colette Hickey.
A Good Shepherd nun based in Cork, she founded the Edel House emergency accommodation in 1972 for women and children at risk of homelessness. She was born on January 31st, 1918.
