Couple laid to rest on same day

Husband and wife John (89) and Annie Ryan (93) died within hours of each other last weekend and were laid to rest on Wednesday in Quilty graveyard. Annie Ryan was the last surviving sister of Miltown Malbay piper Willie Clancy.
The couple, who lived in Tromoroe West near Seafield, married 53 years ago and are survived by their only daughter Anne Ryan. They were laid out in their house on Tuesday.
“We had them at home and we had the two coffins side by side in the room. It was like they couldn’t live without each other. The parish priest, Fr Pat Larkin, said even death couldn’t part them,” Anne Ryan told The Clare Champion.
Anne said that both parents had taken ill recently.
“Two years ago my mother broke her hip and she was bed bound from then on. But we had two marvellous home helps and they helped me to get her up every evening. She’d get up for a few hours, watch television and listen to music. My father is done up since the end of the summer. ,” Anne explained.
“My mother went so suddenly. In the space of two minutes she was gone. She died at 10.05am last Saturday morning. I was shocked when she died but I had to think of my father. He was still hanging on. We knew there wasn’t long left in my dad,” she added.
Anne’s father had been a patient in Milford Hospice for less than a week. “I whispered to him and told him he could go now. ‘She’s gone. She’s waiting for you,” she recalled. John passed away at 1.20am on Sunday morning.
The late Annie was in good form until hours before her death.
“We had my mother up here on Friday night. She watched the toy show and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. She was saying ‘Oh my God, look at that lady and she eating worms!’ She was very funny and very witty.
“She was in great form up to maybe a few hours before she died. She fell sick during the night. We got her up and sorted her out but she settled again. Then she called me in the morning at about 8.30am and said she still fell sick. My home help was there, Mrs Clune from Lissycasey and she died in her arms. She called ‘mama and dada.’ She saw them I suppose. They say they do,” Anne said.
Annie was one of 11 children. “She always said they had no electricity, they had nothing else to do,” her daughter laughed, adding that her parents shared their wedding date with a reasonably well-known couple in the UK.
“They were married 53 years since November 16. They got married the same day as Queen Elizabeth and Philip. ‘Philip and Lizzie got married the same day as us,’ she used to say,” Anne recollected. 
“My father worked in the ESB and for many the long year he was a fisherman. Himself and his nephews had a boat between them and they used to fish lobster and mackerel in the summer,” she added.
The two were buried side by side in the same grave, on Wednesday.
“It’s a love story really continued on into eternity hopefully,” the late couple’s only child concluded.