Generations gather to celebrate birthday of centenarian who rarely strayed far from home

By Tom Fahy

She was born three years before the Free State, but Bridget Joyce rarely strayed far from her beloved Rosmuc, close to the South Shore where she arrived into the world exactly 100 years ago.

Last Saturday, the world came to her, as all ten of her children – as well as her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so many other relatives and friends – gathered to celebrate the centenary of the woman known to all as Bidín Sheán Dharach.

Bridget Joyce (Seoige) was born in South Shore (Cladach ó Dheas), Rosmuc on October 20 1919, the daughter of Seán Seoige of Cladach ó Dheas and Nora Nee of Turloughbeg.

Bidín’s family have lived on the southern shore of the Rosmuc peninsula for many generations.

In her father’s time they lived by and from the sea, so close to the shore that the tide could reach the threshold. By the time Bidín came along her parents were living a few hundred yards inland, but maintained much the same lifestyle as previous generations, working with their neighbours in a close-knit and largely self-sufficient community.

Employment was hard to find in Rosmuc and many – including Bidín’s father – travelled for seasonal work.

They walked to Westport, a journey of some 45 miles, to get a boat to Scotland where they spent weeks picking potatoes. They returned with hard-won earnings and stories to tell.

Bidín, the second youngest of nine children, helped out at home, did well in school and watched people come and go.

Many of her siblings emigrated to England and the United States, some to return again. After school Bidín knitted for a living – first at a local knitting factory and then from home as part of a cottage industry that fed a demand for quality knitwear at home and abroad.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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