20/02/2026
Congratulations Rose on your 100th Birthday!
Rose was for many years a loyal member of our committee and travelled to Lourdes annually as a volunteer nurse with the Armagh Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes.
Wishing you continued health and happiness.
No. 94
"It's my birthday today. I'm 100 years old.
I was born on the 10th of February 1926 in Oldcastle, County Meath. I was the youngest of eight. We were all educated, which was a great thing in those days and we grew up on a farm.
My brothers worked the land and we had a farm labourer and a maid in the house, Alice was her name. When my parents went away, I used to hide up in the loft to avoid my chores. Alice would be calling me down, she would try her best but I stayed up there. It was all a bit of fun. When my parents came home and asked if I had done my chores, she always covered for me. I really like her.
When my eldest brother got married, that was my cue to leave. His wife was coming into the farmhouse, so the rest of us had to move on. I decided I’d go to London. I trained as a nurse there for four years and then worked in a hospital. After that, I went on to America and nursed there too. I never got married, no fella would have me! (Rose burst out laughing here) but I had great friends. We’d go back to each other’s houses in the evenings and at weekends. I was known as the tall one with the curly black hair. I always made sure to go abroad on holidays with my friends every year. There were seven of us. One of them was great at organising, she’d put everything together and I’d just turn up. That suited me perfectly!
Then I got word that my father had fallen down the stairs and broken his hip. The doctor told him, ‘Paddy, if I send you to hospital, you’ll die.’ He wouldn’t have gotten the care he needed. So they carried him back upstairs and he stayed in that room for the next seven years and I looked after him. My uncle lived two doors down and he got sick too. My mother took him in and put a bed beside my father’s. So there were two of them in the room and I nursed them both for years.
After they died my sister Margaret got married and moved to Dundalk, so I followed her up. I lived first on Mary Street North, then moved into a council house in Clún Éada and later on I bought my own house in Glenwood.
Dundalk became my home. I worked as a nurse in the old Louth hospital in Dundalk, up at the top of Stapleton Place. I became a Sister and spent years working in casualty. It was hard work, but I loved it. Every May, I was involved in bringing invalids to Lourdes, a trip that meant an awful lot to so many people and I did that right up until I retired.
As the years passed, I moved to Mount Oliver in Dundalk. I really like it here. I still have friends who call in to see me, to sit and chat and say hello. When I look back on it all, I can honestly say I’ve had a great life. I enjoyed it and I'm still going strong.
Happy Birthday to me!
Rose Smyth
