Margaret, the oldest Irish woman?

Scariff native Margaret Kelly nee McNamara recently celebrated her 108th birthday in the USA.
Born in June 1902, Margaret currently resides at the Pines Nursing Home in Glens Falls, New York, about 50 miles north of Albany, having emigrated to the United States in 1918, when she was just 16 years of age.
Following receipt of her eighth commemorative coin and ninth signed letter from President Mary McAleese, Margaret gave an interview to the Irish Voice publication in New York where she regaled them with tales from her youth in County Clare and taking the boat to a brave new world.
Margaret has a number of relatives still living in Ireland and her nephew Noel McNamara continues to hold the family farm in Clonusker, Scariff. Noel and his sister Eileen visited Margaret and her older sister Nellie in New York 12 years ago just after Nellie celebrated her 103rd birthday.
Eileen, who now lives in Dublin, but whose daughter returned to settle in Scariff, explains how the family continued to keep in touch and the fondness Margaret had for the McNamara’s who stayed at home.
“At that time the eldest in the family took the boat to Long Island and the youngest stayed at home. A total of five from the family went to Long Island. My father remembers bringing them part of the way to the boat. Molly was the eldest and went out first in April 1912. She actually missed the Titanic by about an hour of it going out. My father used to bring them on a pony to trap some of the way and then someone would pick them up. The way it worked then was the eldest would send money home to bring the next one out,” Eileen explained.
Eileen and her brothers went to visit their aunts, Margaret and Nellie, and recalls the welcome and the positive spirit that greeted them.
“We went to see Margaret 12 years ago. Nellie was another aunt who died aged 103. She was brilliant when we saw her, and when I think of it Margaret was in her late 90s but she looked like someone in her 60s. They were fantastic really. Margaret and Nellie were never sick a day in their lives. They worked very hard and of course started working in Ellis Island. None of them really died young. My own father died aged 95 and his mother, my grandmother died in her 90s. She was working on the farm right up until she died. She died of old age really not due to sickness or anything,” Eileen added.
She explained that still today Margaret’s only complaint is that she suffered a broken hip some time ago and indigestion.
“When I went over it was still very much in their minds how the old farm was and they recalled it as it was when they left. My brother Noel stayed at the farm and did up the old house and I was able to tell them what it was like now. It meant a lot to them that the house was still there. Margaret was eager to know about neighbours, she had forgotten none of them. Another curious thing was that both of them still had their Irish accents even after being there so long. I asked Margaret what happened that she didn’t get an American accent and she said I never wanted to lose her Irish one,” Eileen continued.
Margaret had great time for Eileen and Noel’s mother Mai O’Connor who used to write to all the family in the United States and would routinely send them over shamrock from the homestead on time for St Patrick’s Day.
“They were mad about her and were sorry not to have met her before she died. It meant a lot to them that she kept in touch. They were very good to us as well sending us parcels over from America. They praised my mother highly and told how she used to write to them about who was getting married in the area and who had died that kind of news,” she explained.
Both Eileen and Noel are delighted that Margaret hasn’t lost her positive outlook and have congratulated her on her special birthday.
In an interview with the Irish Voice, she described departing for the USA in 1918 arriving on the boat to Ellis Island.
“I remember my mother, she’d hit you with anything she had in her hand! She had no mercy for you! And the church; we were always in the church. It was a great big church. I wonder if it’s still there,” ” Margaret told the U.S publication.
Margaret McNamara was one of seven children raised in East Clare but most of the siblings left Ireland out of necessity. When Margaret arrived at Ellis Island she met a handsome Englishman named Frederick Kelly. They loved going to the famous dance halls in New York like the Jaeger House and the Tuxedo. “I used to love to dance. I loved going to those places,” Margaret recalled.
The two married in 1925 and settled in Queens, raising five children, one of whom, Raymond, died when he was four from pneumonia. After the marriage Margaret stopped working in order to raise her family.
As Margaret’s daughter Margie tells it, her mother didn’t have an easy life. She’s been a widow for 50 years, as Frederick died suddenly in 1960 following surgery. The family had just moved into a new home and Frederick didn’t have a pension or other benefits for his family to fall back on. As a result Margaret returned to work. “I worked for a doctor’s wife in New York and I loved her,” she said.
Margie recalls that it was difficult for the family to maintain their home, but they pulled together and survived. Mother and daughter have been living together more or less since the day Frederick died.
Margie, 76, is her mother’s primary caretaker and best friend by far. “We are very close. I don’t know what I’d do without her,” she says.
Margie added that it was hard for her mother to leave Ireland behind and never return and that she often talked about home. However, Margaret said she wasn’t too upset by the move. “I love New York and I love this country! You can say and do anything you want here.”
According to Irish Voice journalist, Debbie McGoldrick Margaret is far from bed-ridden, and her physical appearance for someone her age is “extraordinary”. Margie reports that her mother has never had any serious illnesses, apart from a broken hip, some digestive problems and other issues that are part of the ageing process, such as forgetfulness and confusion.
She spends her days receiving visitors in her wheelchair and watching Oprah Winfrey and the Fox News Channel.
Longevity seems to run in the family as Margaret own mother lived until she was 98, and her sister Nellie, died at the age of 103.
Although no one lives forever, it appears that Margaret Kelly shows every sign of adding to her coin collection next June 2, and beyond.