THE death has taken place of Mrs Kitty O'Mahony - mother of the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, and Ms Mary Banotti MEP. Aged 86, she was a niece of Michael Collins - her father being Collins's elder brother Johnny.
Mrs O'Mahony was a teacher in the College of Catering, Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin, for many years until her retirement in 1973. She had gone back to work in 1949 after the death of her husband, Jim, who was a bank official and an Abbey actor under the name J.G. Winter.
In 1921, aged 10, she witnessed the reprisal burning of her home at Woodfield, Clonakilty, by the Black and Tans. She and her sister Mary were the last members of the Collins family to see Michael Collins alive in Clonakilty, an hour before he was killed at Beal na mBlath in August 1922.
She is also survived by her son Michael, a solicitor, Dr Catherine O'Mahony and Ms Joan Kinsella, also a solicitor. Another daughter, Una, died in 1991.
The removal will take place to St Anthony's Church, Clontarf, this evening at 5 p.m. The funeral will take place tomorrow after 11 a.m. Mass to Deansgrange Cemetery.