JANUARY 2, 1975 was the longest night of Mary O’Dwyer’s life. It was the first night of her new job working as a care assistant at Regina House in Kilrush, which marked its 40th anniversary last Saturday. Mary was certain it would be her last night in her new surroundings.

 

“I had never worked nights before,” she says, adding she worked every second week. On Mary’s week off, Maureen Quinn filled the post. Mary’s first task on her opening night was to fathom how to use the potato peeler.

“Maureen Quinn had told me how to use it but I wasn’t listening to her at all because I was thinking, ‘God, how am I going to put down a night here?” she laughs.

“They told me I could sit in the kitchen at night but there were no curtains on the windows or anything. One of the patients brought me down a chair, some other one came with a paper and another one came with an apple. Sr Catherine (Regina House matron) was gone to bed, Maureen Quinn had gone home and I was looking at the potato peeler but I was afraid to open it in case I’d break it,” she recalls with admirable clarity.

The dawn of a new day didn’t bring very positive tidings with it for Mary. Her husband, Brendan, was due to collect her.

“There was no sign of him. He never got up. I had an awful night put down and now this. It was about 8am in the morning. So I went out to the gate anyway and this man stopped, MJ Donnellan, and he gave me a lift as far as Cree. We were expecting Brendan to come all the time but there was no sign of him,” she sighs, still miffed, 37 years later, remembering the murderous thoughts she was aiming at her husband.

“I was walking away anyway and I thought ‘I’ll kill him’. MJ came again. He said his mother had told him to go to Mullagh for shopping. He gave me a lift nearly all the way up home. Then Brendan came and not a bother on him,” she recalls. “Then I couldn’t sleep and I was thinking ‘how am I going to stick this?’
Mary most definitely stuck at it and remained working nights at Regina House for 37 years.

The 32-bed Regina House Community Nursing Home, which includes palliative care units, is located on the Cooraclare Road in Kilrush. It was opened in 1972 by the then Minister for Health Eskrine Childers. Back then, it was a 40-bed unit catering mainly for low-dependency patients.

The building was constructed by Nicholas O’Gorman and it is believed it is located on the grounds of the old pound, while a dog track was once located behind Regina House. Sr Catherine (RIP) was Regina House’s first matron and Dr Coughlan was appointed medical officer. Anne McNamara is the current director of nursing.

In 1972, Regina House was one of two welfare homes in the country. The second one was located in Nenagh. The majority of beds in Regina House are now long stay, with 75% of patients being high dependency. Along with the two palliative care beds, Regina House also has eight respite beds.
Mary started work each night at 8.30pm.

“We used to do the washing at night that time and hang out the clothes on the line. The patients would come and help at night with the washing. We did all the ironing, prepared the vegetables and sometimes we’d do the cakes but the cook was here,” she reminisces.

As Mary worked, Sr Catherine slept and only got up if a patient became ill. “The patients were good. A lot of them would stay up until 12 o’clock, they’d be watching television. They liked the company as well. But still it was lonely here by yourself. No matter what, you could never get used to that part of it, even though nothing ever happened. There was never a break-in or anything.
“I was here 20 years on my own before a nurse came on at night. The night nurse came on around ’95 or ’96. When the nurses came, it was a grand job then,” she reflects.

Having retired at the end of February, 37 years after her rather trying opening night, Mary says she now misses her work routine.

“I still miss it. I know I shouldn’t be saying this because my family will go mad. They’ll say when I was doing it I was grunting and giving out about it but when it’s my Monday night to come on, I say ‘I should be working tonight now,” Mary smiles.

During her almost four decades working in Regina House, Mary became close friends with patients and her work colleagues, one of whom developed a rather peculiar habit, which manifested itself once a year.

“There was a woman working here, her name was Chrissy Keane. She used to always say ‘make sure there’s a man here in the morning, out at the door to wish me a Happy New Year’. She lived on her own and she said if a woman wished her a happy new year first, it was bad luck for the year. I always made sure that we had a man at the door in the morning,” Mary reveals.

Last Saturday, current and former staff joined the patients in marking the 40th anniversary of Regina House. These days, families of patients are much more involved in their lives than was the case in the 1970s.

The Friends of Regina House work proactively and in recent years have organised events including Tea in the Meadow and Tea in the Bog. It’s quite an improvement from when Mary started working in Regina House, which was often freezing cold.

“There was no heat on at night,” Mary remembers, adding she often had to wear a coat or a scarf, while working indoors.

Prior to securing employment at Regina House, Mary worked in a similar capacity at Edenvale in Ennis. Hearing that there was a possibility of a job going in Kilrush, Mary made a few calls to Sr Catherine, who eventually got sick of all the calls.

“Don’t be ringing here again’ she said. ‘I’m very happy with my staff and I don’t want any more’. Anyway, out of the blue one day, I was working in Edenvale and the phone rang. It was Sr Catherine and she said ‘I’ve a job for you, night duty.”

It was a job that took Mary a night or two to settle into but once she did, she grew to love her time at Regina House.

 

 

Work around the corner for Donat

FAMILIAR faces abound at Regina House. John Woulfe has been resident there for almost 40 years, while Donat O’Shea has worked in Regina House on the Cooraclare Road for 27 years.
Donat must have the shortest commute to work of anybody in Kilrush as he lives just around the corner in St Patrick’s Terrace.
“I don’t even need a bicycle to get here,” Donat jokes.
“I’ve been involved in everything except giving out medicine,” he says. “I’ve been working at garden maintenance and a lot of other bits and pieces around the place.
“It’s part of my life after all of these years. It’s home from home. There’s a very happy environment here and after 27 years, you gain a lot of knowledge. I’ve got to know an enormous amount of people in those years. I could write a book about them.”
Donat has witnessed, first hand, the esteem in which Regina House is held locally.
“It has built up a great history and a great reputation. It has given excellent service to West Clare and we’re very proud of it. I’ve seen a lot of good changes in my time here,” he notes.
In the early years, Regina House was largely self-sufficient and housed low-dependency patients. John Woulfe once worked in the orchard from where the fruit was used to make jam, while he also tended to the garden.
When Regina House opened, it catered for about 40 patients of varying ages. These days, patients must be aged 65 and over if they are to be admitted to the elderly care unit.
The current 32-bed facility features two palliative care beds, which were funded by the West Clare Mini Marathon, while the rooms were built by the HSE. Regina House also houses eight respite beds.