Mayo's ‘Katty’ gets letter and gift from President on 103rd birthday

A letter from President Michael D. Higgins - the third in as many years - popped through Katty (Catherine) Delaney’s letterbox in Mayo Abbey during the week.

The message wished Katty, who is 103 today (Sunday) a happy birthday and congratulated her on her longevity.

Included in the package of correspondence was a special commemorative coin in a presentation box.

At her home over the weekend, Katty expressed delight at the President’s gesture. “It’s nice the respect he shows us older people,” she commented.

One of the many tasks Katty had to perform during her days as a priest’s housekeeper housekeeper included milking cows, saving hay and growing vegetables.

She even looked after a Suffolk ram which won many show-day ribbons for the late Canon Heaney, parish priest of Mayo Abbey in the 1950s.

Katty, a believer in the value of simple food as a means of maintaining good health, never smoked and never in her time entered through the doorway of a dancehall.

Asked on her 100th birthday why she never went to a dance, she replied: “It’s just that I didn’t go. I never bothered.”

Longevity may well be in Katty’s genes for her grandfather, Walter Hughes, was 103 when he died in 1939.

Grandad Walter used to tell her stories of the Great Famine and is believed to have been one of the first persons in the west of Ireland to ride a bicycle.

In her recently published memoirs, Katty wrote: “There have been big changes in Mayo Abbey during my lifetime.

“Everyone is well educated, the people have plenty to eat, they live in comfortable houses and can communicate with their friends at home and abroad simply by taking up a smart-phone.”

In comparison with other years, Katty’s 103rd today was low key, marked by cups of tea and brief visits from friends and relations.