Mum - a modern day Queen Maeve of Connaught

A Strawberry Blonde Marilyn Monroe lookalike; the kindness of a C&A Suit and a Radio; the Busby Babes & the Bee Gees; Baked Ham; a Champion Cycling Advocate for Downs Syndrome & the Bank of NK

On our first Mother’s Day without Mum, I share with you my readers, what was my eulogy last June. I recognise that this is a rather personal, niche topic so I will not be offended if you decide not to read. If you do choose to read, I will be honoured.

I just wish that I had had more time with Mum.

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Mum, Kitty to her friends, was born in October 1935, Ballyglass West, county Roscommon. Her parents Nora and Tom Costello, dairy farmers, had five children: Tommy Joe, Paddy, Mum the middle child, her sister Marie and the youngest Roger.

Mum was 12 years older than her brother, our Uncle Roger, who can remember Mum looking after him as a young child, when his parents were working on the family farm. Roger remembers being told that Mum did a good job changing his nappies as a baby.

One childhood memory Mum shared with us was the thrill of going to see black & white Laurel and Hardy films, sitting on wooden benches in the local hall.

Economic emigration was a necessary rite of passage for many Irish people, then and indeed now. When visiting Strandhill, whilst on a road trip in Sligo with Deirdre, myself and Mick in summer 2021, Mum shared that when she was a youngster, her maternal aunts Catherine (born 1897); Nancy (born 1900) and Bessie (born 1902) returned home from the U.S. for a summer holiday. They spent a few days at Strandhill and took mum with them. Mum can remembering climbing to the top of Knockarea mountain, an 8 kilometre long, 327 metre high ascent to Queen Maeve’s tomb - a Cairn at the summit.

Photos: Knocksrea mountain https://gostrandhill.com/explore/places-of-interest/knocknarea/

The 3 hour climb is today described as “strenuous” by sligowalks.ie. Mum was indeed athletic in her youth and similar to her granddaughters Saoirse and Laoise, played Camogie at local club level.

Like her aunts Catherine, Nancy, Marie and Bessie Hunt who emigrated before her, after obtaining vocational qualifications in secretarial and typing skills, Mum aged 18 took the boat and emigrated to Manchester, England, living with her Aunt Marie, my godmother, known affectionately as Aunty Gill.

Photo: unknown, Mum returning to Manchester, England via train from Castlerea, County Roscommon to Dublin. From Left to Right: Kathleen Campion (nee Mannion, her childhood friend ), Mum with a vanity case hidden behind lady in a brown suit, Mum’s mother Nora in a grey suit/coat and Mum’s younger sister Marie

Mum’s brother, our Uncle Roger, who was 5 years old when Mum emigrated, shared that Mum would return home every summer for the annual carnival in Loughglynn. This was a big event with typically ten Irish show bands playing at the carnival. Mum was an absolute stunner in her youth, for all the world an exotic, glamorous strawberry blonde Marilyn Monroe.

Photo: Richard Crawley (Catherine Hunt’s son), taken in 1955?; From Left to Right: my grandmother Nora, my mother Kitty, my mother’s younger sister Marie and brother Roger, my grandfather Tom and a collie (probably called Prince).

Mary Creighton, a small child at the time and the daughter of Margaret Creighton who ran the local pub and shop in Loughglynn, described Mum as “a beauty”. Mum’s mother Nora, our Nana, would say to Mum “would you ever stop titivating yourself”. But Nana would lie awake in bed waiting for mum to arrive home from the carnival dances and then get up to hear all the gossip - who was dancing with who?

Both of Mum’s surviving siblings Marie and Roger have remembered and told me about Mum’s generosity and kindness. Mum posted home a charcoal grey suit from C & A in Manchester for Roger’s confirmation. Marie remembers Mum regularly sending money home to her parents Tom and Nora. Mum and Tommy Joe bought the first radio for her parents, whilst Marie and Roger were living at home. It was powered by a battery that had to be charged up in Loughglynn village. There was no mains electricity at this time, that came later as for many Irish homes. The radio was nicknamed “The Man in the Box” and was only allowed to be turned on for the news, to save the battery.

Decades later, Mum was known for her generosity and kindness to her three grandchildren: Callum, Saoirse and Laoise, whom she adored.

Photo: author, September 2016, at Deirdre’s 40th birthday

As they grew older, Saoirse, Laoise and Callum came to better appreciate her dry, witty sense of humour and relished what

Photo: Saoirse, Mum and her three grandchildren

we all affectionately called “The Bank of NK”, which seemed to endlessly deliver €50 euro notes. Mum was lovingly known as NK (Nana Kitty) - a pet name that she enjoyed.

Mum had many stories. She had a habit of just mentioning something years, sometimes decades later, just out of the blue, which would often make one’s jaw drop in surprise. For example, at a birthday meal in the Country Club in July 2020, Mum told my husband Mick that she was an

avid Manchester United football fan when living in Manchester with Aunty Gill in the 1950s. Mum used to go to all the Man United matches with a boyfriend. Through personal contacts she got to know George Best and the rest of the Busby Babes rather well. And then Mum flirtatiously asked my husband, a lifelong Liverpool supporter “So Michael, what has Liverpool ever done for you?”

Another story Mum shared was that in the mid to late 1950s, she worked together and became friends with Barbara Gibb (nee Pass), the mother of Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb, the Bee Gees. This was before the Gibbs family moved from Chorlton, Manchester to Australia in August 1958.

Mum had a more serious side. She had a deep faith, a special devotion to Our Lady of Knock and was a member of the Legion of Mary, whilst living in Manchester. On one occasion, as a young woman in the 1950s, mum passed through Boulogne port on an overnight Dover-Boulogne ferry and sleeper train, en route to visiting the pilgrimage town of Lourdes, down south in France near the Pyrenees mountains. She can remember ordering a half bottle of Sauternes wine with her dinner onboard the overnight train and finding it very sweet.

Mum had a great love of holidays and travel throughout her life - France, Italy, Spain, Corfu, Thailand for Daniel and Clare’s

wedding, the Balearic Islands with her girlfriends in later life and road trips around the island of Ireland with Deirdre, myself and Mick. Afterwards, Mum would admit to my brother that she was absolutely shattered after the road trips as I think I often packed too much in. Yet Mum thoroughly enjoyed going places and meeting people. Ice creams at Keem Bay at the far end of Achill Island on a hot summer’s day was a particular recent favourite. The sea cliffs rising like sentinels above us.

Photos: author, Keem Bay, Achill Island, June 2022

Photo: author

Mum’s sister Marie, 8 years younger, also lived in Manchester and shared a house with Mum and girlfriends.

Photo: unknown, Mum, sister Marie and friends, who house-shared in Manchester in the 1950s

Mum was initially engaged to a gentle Sligo man named Seamus Hannon. Mum and Seamus were godparents to my cousin Roger, Tommy Joe and Nora’s son. Then mum met our father Daniel/Danny and as they say the rest was history.

Mum’s sister Marie says “He was the greatest love of her life”.

Mum’s brother Roger shares that after mum and dad were married in October 1963, they returned home to mum’s family home in

Photo: From Left to Right - Uncle Tommy Joe, Uncle Roger, Aunty Gill, my parents, Grandparents Nora and Tom, Church of Our Lady of Good Council, Loughglynn

Roscommon for their first Christmas as a married couple. They went out for Christmas drinks with Roger at The Railway Hotel in Ballaghadereen and bumped into Gerard Cuniffe, a neighbouring pig farmer, who had their own family pork butchery shop. Uncle Roger to this day remembers being taken in to see the slaughtered pigs hanging from hooks. Mum was presented with a whole ham to take home and cook for Christmas.

Now anyone who knows Mum, knows that she was an exceptional, if messy, home cook. My husband Mick says Mum could make “shite” taste good and we all looked forward to her epic Sunday roasts, weekend Irish breakfasts, apple or rhubarb tarts and crumbles, soda bread, treacle bread and tea brack (a recipe from Una O’Reilly at the top of the road). Mum’s Christmas hams were legendary.

Photo: author, Christmas Day 2021

BUT for Christmas 1963, this was the FIRST ever ham Mum had cooked and it was undercooked. Uncle Roger shared that everyone around the Christmas table said nothing and ate what they were given. But when Mum and Dad left, the ham joint was quickly put back into the oven and cooked some more.

After Mum and Dad married and moved to London, they acquired a puppy called Shep, our only family dog and I was born the following July.

Photo: With my parents at Murlough Bay summer 1965, Scotland in the distance

Mum often reminded me that she had preeclampsia in the later stages of her first pregnancy and that I “almost killed her”; the doctors and midwives having to “dig” me out with forceps. I still have pink marks on both sides of my scalp where the forceps were clamped. When Mum went into a long labour, she told me that Dad’s family from Churchfield, Ballycastle, county Antrim, were actually placing bets on whether I would be born on the 12th July, a Protestant Orange Order Marching day in Northern Ireland.

Mum’s brother Roger remembers that both Mum and Dad were very supportive when he was studying for his Engineering degree in Hatfield. He loved coming up to visit Mum and Dad in Harrow, north London. To meet his thesis deadline, Mum typed it up well into the night. And very early the next morning, Dad and Uncle Roger drove up from Harrow to Hatfield to deliver Uncle Roger’s thesis to the college, meeting the deadline.

Mum’s sister Marie and her husband Brian also lived in north London in the late 1960s/early 1970s and they enjoyed nights out together at the Galtymore Dance Hall in Cricklewood, as well as house parties, playing music on the record player and dancing well into the night.

Photo: At the Galtymore Dance Hall, Cricklewood

Mum’s brother in law Brian told me “I don’t know how you children slept through the music”.

Mum and Dad lived in Harrow, north London with myself, Marion and Kathryn until 1973.

Photo: my communion

Daniel was born in November 1972, when Ireland was starting to become more prosperous after the discovery of natural gas off the coast of Kinsale in 1971 and voting to join the EEC in May 1972. There was a great Christening service and a party for baby Daniel in Harrow, London, with family gathered from both sides. And there was a professional photographer present who crystallised the day with lots of photos of Mum, Dad, myself, Marion, Kathryn and the then baby Daniel, with loads of our Costello and McCormick cousins.

Not long afterwards, Mum, Dad, baby Daniel on Mum’s lap, Shep the dog at Mum’s feet in the front of the car; myself, Marion and Kathryn squeezed into the back of the green Hunter car, beside a tea chest filled to the brim, a copy of Pilgrims Progress and my goldfish Midge in a glass bowl on top; then moved back to Ireland, driving up the M1 motorway, via a ferry across the Irish Sea.

Photo: a family communion in county Clare, just before we moved to Dublin

We lived in rural County Clare for two years, before our parents bought a new build family home in Portmarnock, on the north Dublin coast.

Daniel, as a young child in our 1970s home in Portmarnock can remember “Great hugs; Lying in the hall in the sunshine as a young child, Mum at the kitchen sink, waving at me…. Mum buying me my first football boots from British Home Stores (now Penneys beside the GPO)”.

Both Mum and her sister Marie lived with their young families in Portmarnock. Marie describes Mum as “practical; hard-working; very thrifty; selfless; she liked to set herself a challenge; Kitty faced adversity head on yet had a wonderful love of life”.

Our cousin Frances, from Ballycastle, County Antrim, daughter of Dad’s sister Sally shared “I have to tell you, when I was a small child in Churchfield, the bestest spoiling I got was from your parents and I’ve never forgotten it”.

Mum and Dad’s hospitality was well known. Mum’s sister Marie and brother Roger both remember Mum and Dad offering ongoing support to Josie and Mary Hunt in 1979, after their son John was knocked down by a car in Loughglynn and transferred with head injuries to the then Richmond Hospital in north Dublin City, close to the Phoenix Park. On 29th September 1979, whilst the rest of the city had to walk miles and miles to get to Pope John Paul’s mass in the Phoenix Park due to security road closures, Dad managed to obtain a car pass, officially to take the Hunts to visit their son in Richmond Hospital, but he whisked us down through the empty streets of north Dublin City to the boundary wall of the Phoenix Park, where we parked and then strolled through inside the gates. Mum had a special pass and seating with a close up view of the Pope, at the front near the altar with Deirdre.

Mum made and kept strong friendships over the years, often facilitated by playing cards and at bridge club:

• Marie and Roger remind us of Mum’s childhood friends Kathleen Campion (nee Mannion) from Castlerea and Kitty Giblin (nee Rafferty) from Fairy Mount in Roscommon.

• As children when living in Clare, we remember Kitty and Jim McNicholas and their children Ciaran, Maura and Padraic from Ennis. Watching ABBA sing Waterloo and win the Eurovision Song Contest in April 1974 was a memorable evening together.

• Kathryn and Daniel remember the many 25s house card playing pals of Mum from Portmarnock in the 1990s - Breege Cryan, Lana Reece, Bill & Emily Stanton, Nel & Micky Kennedy; Maura & Eugene Gavin, Bridie Mannox, Mary Ward and Rita Turner.

• More recently Daniel and Kathryn remember Mum playing cards at the Portmarnock Sports & Leisure Centre with friends Breege, Tom, John, Dominic, Sean & Frank.

• Mum was known to be a good player at Bridge club. Kathryn remembers Annette, Mum’s Bridge partner for many years.

• Friday Club: music, bingo and afternoon tea with Bridie, Tess, Don, Irene and Mary Walsh.

Mum was a warrior, Amazonian. She survived a tough life - economic emigration to England aged 18; rearing five children, parenting was old-school Irish style;

Photo: Mum, Gortahork, county Donegal, late 1970s or very early 1980s

managing a home on a limited budget, juggling bills; nursing Deirdre through double pneumonia as a young child, when she almost died in Harcourt Street Hospital; a marriage separation and in later life debilitating arthritis, amyloidosis, heart and kidney disease.

Mum was fierce, sharp as a pin and did not suffer fools gladly. She called a spade a spade. A personality characteristic that she has gifted to her five children.

Photo: author, Fair Head and Marconi’s cottage in the distance, 2024

Deirdre, our darling youngest sister, who is intellectually disabled with Down’s Syndrome, was Mum’s life work.

Photo: author, Howth Pier, summer 2020

Mum has always championed Deirdre - cycling there and back six kilometres each way twice a day, with Deirdre on the bicycle carrier to Montessori school, whatever the weather; campaigning until she secured Deirdre an integrated place in our local primary school; volunteering with the Down’s Syndrome Association of Ireland.

Photo: author, Mum and Deirdre, Howth Head, 1980s

Mum and Deirdre were like two peas in a pod, devoted to each other. And absolute social butterflies.

Our cousin Nora O’Dea, Tommy Joe’s daughter shared “I loved watching them when they were together even down to putting their lipstick on from one to the other. It was precious, the love they shared.”

Our Mum, A Warrior. A modern day Queen Maeve of Connaught. We love you Mum.

Drawing: author, Charcoal pencils

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