Beloved Laois nurse celebrates 100th birthday

Frances Conroy (née Campion) celebrated her 100th birthday in style this week.

The Laois woman is known across the county for her friendly manner and kindness. Mrs Conroy was born in Lisduff, Errill on January 18 1925. As the eldest daughter of ten children, life wasn’t always easy for Mrs Conroy.

“There was always a baby in our house when I was a child,” explained Mrs Conroy.

“When my mother was giving birth, the nurse was from Templetouhy and she would stay in the house for the week. We would bring the bed down from upstairs to the parlour. It’s such a different world today, when I see my grandchildren now,” she said.

Pictured: Frances Conroy on her 100th birthday 

Mrs Conroy went to primary school in Errill, and did not progress further due to an undiagnosed severe allergy.

“I only had primary education, for the simple reason that I was allergic to wild primroses,” she said.

“For the month of May each year, I would pick flowers for the Virgin Mary’s altar. The next day I would wake up so unwell, my skin would be swollen and breaking. My father blamed the east wind, so I couldn’t go to school from May til I was back in September, and it happened every year,” Mrs Conroy said.

At the age of 22, Mrs Conroy moved to Romford, Essex in England to train as a nurse. 

“I went over to train in the Old Church Hospital after the war in 1947, there were a lot of Irish nursing students there at the time,” Mrs Conroy said.

Mrs Conroy stayed in Romford as a staff nurse for a year, where she was in charge of a ward of 28 patients.

When she came home to Ireland, Mrs Conroy graduated at the top of her class, and had secured a midwifery training place in Holles Street maternity hospital.

“I still regret that I never trained as a midwife,” Mrs Conroy explained.

“I called into Portlaoise for my birth certificate when I came home from Romford. There was a Dr Paddy Campion working there, who offered me work in the hospital. I worked in Portlaoise then until I was married in 1957,” Mrs Conroy said.

“We lived in Portlaoise for all of those years,” said Mrs Conroy.

Mrs Conroy married Edward Conroy from the Downs in Portlaoise, who was one of 17 children. 

In her 100 years, Mrs Conroy has had many ups and downs. She and her husband had five children, with her son Seán Raymond dying of cot death at six weeks old.

“I was heartbroken when he died, and it still worries me,” Mrs Conroy admitted. Mr and Mrs Conroy have five children: their eldest Bernard, their son Edward, their daughter Margaret, their son Seán Raymond who passed away as a baby, and their youngest son Joseph.

“The Conroys' had started a garage and Eddie didn’t work there, but he had gotten a job years before that in the County Council,” Mrs Conroy explained. 

“He was working on new roads in a tar lorry. His sister Julia was a nurse in the hospital with me, and his other sister was a matron in the Coombe hospital.

When I came back to Portlaoise, I had £50 from my work in England,” she said.

“I bought myself a bike in their garage, and Eddie brought it up to me that morning. He asked me if I liked the pictures, and if I would go to the pictures with him sometime,” she said.

“It all started from there. We had twenty years of marriage, until he began complaining of a pain,” Mrs Conroy said.

“They always believed his pain was a form of arthritis from his work, and he was going to physio and exercising.”

Mr Conroy sadly passed away due to pancreatic cancer. 

“There was a doctor O’Connell from Portlaoise who worked in the Mater, whose father used to work in Portlaoise too. He saw Eddie and decided to operate, and we were hoping it would all be grand,” she explained.

“The day of the operation, Dr O’Connell walked me out of the hospital and told me that Eddie had cancer of the pancreas. He lived three weeks or so after the operation, and passed away in the Mater hospital.”

The couple had been married for over twenty years when Mr Conroy sadly passed away, and Mrs Conroy explained that life was a lonely existence without Mr Conroy until she took up retirement activities.

“We were married twenty years, Bernard was just 19 and had got a job in the bank, Eamon was next and got into an insurance company in Dublin. Mairéad was in leaving cert in boarding school, and our youngest Joe had started in school out in Ballyfin,” she said.

“I remember one of the days before the operation, Eddie said to me, ‘wouldn’t we be on top of the world if this old pain would go.’ I’ve never forgotten it, the day when you think you’re on top of the world, and you’re not,” Mrs Conroy said.

Mrs Conroy praised her children, saying that they never gave her a day’s trouble.

“The children were young, and one day in the 80’s the hospital rang,” Mrs Conroy said.

“They were short staffed and needed someone to cover ambulance duty for the night. The nurses were all so different, wearing slacks. Penicillin had come in and was being used at this stage, it changed everything. It was such a different environment.”

In 1985, Mrs Conroy began working in a daycare hospital centre, a place she dearly loved.

“It was new at the time, and I was appointed there. I loved it, we had the older people coming in who lived alone, we used to do a bit of bingo. A brand new bus was there to collect the older people. We had a lovely driver on that bus, a man named John Walsh,” she said.

“I worked there until I had to retire in 1995, when I turned 65.”

In her retirement, Mrs Conroy joined the bridge club and played golf. 

“I picked up golf after my husband died, I was very lonely,” she said.

“I thought that everybody had something to do, except for myself. I had a friend in Portlaoise, she used to play golf and asked me to join. I wouldn’t hear of it until I retired. I made great friends, it was very social,” Mrs Conroy explained.

Over the span of 100 years, Mrs Conroy has seen many changes to society. 

“I don’t miss the way things used to be, and I don’t feel that I am 100 at all,” she said.

Mrs Conroy thanked everyone who attended her birthday party on Saturday.

“It was a right old crowd, and everyone was so good to me,” she said.

We asked Mrs Conroy one final question: what is the secret to a long and happy life?

“Hard work,” she finished.