A little lady who touched so many gone to a place where it is forever Christmas

Date Published: {J}

By Máirtín Ó Catháin

She was a Connemara girl. With the flowing black hair and outdoor looks, Aibha Conroy mirrored her background and her place.

At six years of age Aibha was already well familiar with her native landscape. Only a few short weeks ago she was part of a walk for community funds on the mountain road to the townland of Seanach Dónaill in the parish of Carna.

With her one sibling, Sorcha – eleven months younger – Aibha accompanied her mother Kathleen on the walk as her father, John helped out on the occasion. They were a family anchored in the community and forging a better path for the future.

Aibha was walking a mountain road that day well trodden by her forbears and her ancestors. And even in her tender years she had grown to form a strong bond with nature and with the animals and ponies that were in her blood.

She and Sorcha, along with their mother Kathleen, tended and fed their Connemara ponies day after day. All animals were part of Aibha’s young life. She could put the frightened kitten born in the wild at ease and take it in her hands, as she did very lately. Indeed her biggest request for Christmas was a jacket for the dog in this cold weather!

Her uncle John Keaney speaking at the funeral mass said that Aibha had left the family great memories and Fr Jarlath Heraty said she had shown wisdom beyond her years.

Her little words of kindness and encouragement to family members who might have been ill showed her innate concern for her fellow human beings.

Aibha Conroy was grounded in her place and in her community; she would have left a fine footprint as she walked her path in life. But the things of this world were not mapped out for her.

From being a strong and healthy child returning from school the previous day Aibha was struck down by a sudden illness and her life ebbed away in less than a week.

Her parents Kathleen (formerly Keaney) and John, a native of Camross in Laois and her sister Sorcha have suffered a blow that is hard to comprehend.

So have her grandparents in Gowla, Tomás and Kathleen Keaney and her grandparents in Laois, John and Phil Conroy. Her uncles and aunts, grand uncles and grand aunts, relatives and neighbours are all left numbed by her passing.

The teachers and pupils at the Primary School in Carna where Aibha and sister Sorcha sat together are trying to come to terms with her loss.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.