WHEN KATHLEEN Murray was born, King Edward had succeeded the late Victoria to the British throne and Theodore Roosevelt had become the first US president to ride in a car. Police had beaten up suffragettes campaigning for the right to vote in Brussels, and California had recorded the first person to fly a powered aircraft.
It’s hard to fit 107 candles on a cake, but relatives and staff at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Roscommon town did their best yesterday to mark Ms Murray’s birthday. A native of Crannagh, Summerhill, near Athlone, Co Westmeath, she is the fourth- oldest person in the State on the records of Áras an Uachtaráin.
Ms Murray never married, and in conversations with her family and hospital staff she cites this as one of the reasons for her longevity – along with avoiding prescribed medicines where possible.
Ms Murray grew up in a farming family and trained as a cook after leaving school. She later worked with McNeill’s undertakers and with Nayler’s chemist shop in Athlone, before taking a position as a priest’s housekeeper. Ms Murray cooked in and maintained presbyteries for many years, until her retirement more than 40 years ago. She has maintained a love of the outdoors, enjoying long country walks while she was fit and able, and gardening, according to hospital staff.
Her one weakness was smoking – up to 20 cigarettes a day – but she gave up at the age of 97 when she took up residence in the Sacred Heart Hospital.