RTE star Joe Duffy told mourners how his mother Mabel fought off thugs in the middle of the night with a curtain rail as he fought back tears while paying tribute to his mother at her funeral.
Mabel passed away on Sunday at Kiltipper Woods Care Centre at the age of 94.
Yesterday at her funeral mass at St Matthews Church in Ballyfermot, Dublin, the Liveline host paid tribute to his cherished mother, revealing stories of how she had fought off thugs with a curtain rail as they tried to rob her several years ago.
He said: “She enjoyed great health, even when she warned off night-time intruders when a curtain rail while living alone a few years ago. The gardai in Ballyfermot wanted her to go to hospital but when the paramedics arrived, they discovered she had a healthier blood pressure than the assembled younger uniformed men and women around her.”
But the 66-year-old told how her health had deteriorated rapidly over the years and she contracted Covid-19 before the vaccination rollout had begun.
“But her vision began to fail dramatically. But again, after going through a long regime of very painful eye injections, she refused any painkillers but gradually her health began to fail and frail, which she found hard to accept.
“Almost clinically blind, I rang her favourite priest Father Joe asking if he could give her communion in the body of the church as he did with others during mass.
“The following Sunday he went down to where Mabel sat, offered her communion, she refused it, denying she had an eyesight problem and she bet him back up to the altar. Sorry Joe.
“But falls at home and a stroke brought the inevitable and in the middle of the Covid pandemic in 2020 when St James Hospital insisted, she needed intensive 24 hour help, she contracted Covid before vaccines arrived and she reluctantly went into Kiltipper Woods Care Centre where she lived and was cared for brilliantly since December 2020.”
Joe said he rarely saw his mother sitting down and was a hard worker all her life, despite having no education.
He recalled to mourners: “We have come a long way in her lifetime. On the day that Mable was born, May 11th 1929 the new Dail was debating the closure of workhouses, which had existed in Ireland since before the famine and it is fair to say that Mabel and her siblings, Annie, May, Monica, Agnes, Patsy, John, Willy with their parents Grace and Peter did not have an easy life.
“Mabel unfortunately could not recall if she made her communion or confirmation as she lived in 19 different places in Dublin city.
“But the six girls were a strong and lively sisterhood working together in the same factories from an early age. She was 24 when her first child James was born. She was living in Mountjoy place, but things changed dramatically in 1958 when Mabel and Jimmy’s name was picked out of a lottery at city hall and they got a house at 6 Claddagh Green.
“She moved there with James and myself, four more were to arrive later and Jimmy headed off sporadically for work in England. She lived in Claddagh Green for over 60 years, refusing any other better housing offers and when she eventually bought the house off the corporation with her own money, she carried the deeds around in her handbag.
“My god, she worked hard long before she was married. Like so many, the rearing six children she was very disciplined with us and herself. This was a woman who hardly ever drank or smoked yet insisted on buying low fat Flora for herself until the day she left Claddagh Green in November 2020.
“That being said when we were growing up she never asked for or accepted any help and never let margarine onto the table except her own or visit a stew house in Ballyfermot.
“I seldom saw my mother sitting down. It’s only after she got a part time job as a cleaner in the – toy factory, it was to be a six-month fundraising project to buy a twin tub washing machine. It lasted for 20 years.
“You know what it’s like, once you get the twin tub, you want the villa in Portugal and the two skiing holidays a year,” he said jokingly.
“She headed off across the fields every evening… in a blue smock at 5 o’clock. Having been up shortly after 6 that morning Home at 9:30pm and that was the only time I saw her sit in her slippers by the fire.
“She loved living in Ballyfermot. Her life began to improve, which I mean our lives.”
Holding back tears Joe spoke about the youngest child Aiden who was tragically killed in a car crash in 1991, aged 25.
“This was seven years after our father died, aged 58.
“When she died last Sunday, Mabel was six years longer a widow than she was a wife.”
He told mourners that she “loved her garden”, adding “she insisted on cutting her grass with a shears and a push lawn mower up to the time she was 90”.
“This was after she finished polishing the steps outside her hall door on her knees with the mansion red wax polish.
“She loved dancing and she could move. The photo was taken at her 90th birthday with a high-speed camera as we couldn’t get her to slow down.”
Joe said she was visited “every day” by Pauline when she lived in Claddagh Green.
He said his siblings were “Mabel’s rock” every day and she was “often hard on you”.
“Us boys got the wooden spoon on the back of the leg when we mitched school but to see Mabel brandishing a frying pan with the eggs still in it running towards Pauline was the lasting laugh, I knew you’ll never forget.”
Joe said Aiden’s death was a wound “which has never healed for any of us”
“Mabel we were blessed in your often hard life. Blessed in your easy passing and after 94 years on this earth, blessed beyond belief that you were our mother.
“So in this church, your favourite, we say goodbye today. Ike so many of your generation, Mabel you sank the well and we drank the water.
“She did not have a formal education, which did affect her life.”
He thanked mourners for coming and “thinking of Mabel”, adding: “We have come a long way in our lifetime.”
A round of applause for Joe was given as he touched Mabel’s coffin as he walked back to her seat.
Among the mourners at St Matthews Catholic Church included PrimeTime host Miriam O’Callaghan, former Rte radio host Sean O’Rourke, Winning Streak host Marty Whelan and his wife Maria and comedian Sil Fox.
Gifts brought to the altar John, James, Ryan, Seana and Darragh included her favourite slippers and a packet of Mr Kipling cakes. A picture of Mabel also was placed beside her coffin.
“The symbols are rich, they’re deceptionally simple,” said Father Joe McDonald, who presided over her funeral.
Captain Paul O’Donnell, aide de camp to President Michael D Higgins was also in attendance.
Opening up about his friendship with Mrs Duffy over the years, Father McDonald said the church will be at a great loss without her, saying: “A part of St Matthews has died”.
He said: “It is very fitting we gather here in this beautiful church in the heart of Ballyfermot
“Mabel loved here. I see her there. She was a regular. It was a very important place for her.”
Father McDonald said she was a “much loved mother”.
“I don’t think I ever met her that I wasn’t rewarded with her smile. She had a lovely smile. There was a lovely warmth in her.
“I think she spent a long time laughing at me,” he said jokingly.
He said: “We gather in sadness of course, particularly those who loved her. We’ve only one mum. When you look at Mabel’s life there is a lot to be grateful for.”
It would be very remiss not to mention faith. She was a woman of faith.
“She was a wonderful neighbour” as he acknowledged her grandchildren and great grandchildren was very “important part of her life”.
He recalled the first night he celebrated mass at the church, saying he didn’t make the connection that she was Joe Duffy’s mother.
“My very first night, I didn’t make any connection with Joe and the radio. I didn't get that. I put my foot in it that night. I put my foot in it on a weekly basis since but that’s a different story.
“But I was in full flight, I threw in a one liner during the sermon ‘now don’t be go phoning Joe Duffy’. She sat and smiled at me. I hadn’t a clue what I had done.”
He said it was only until someone introduced her to him outside as Joe Duffy’s mother, Father McDonald told mourners: “My very first night, I put my foot in it. She just smiled and said I’ll go home and ring him straight way.”
Music included Amazing Grace, while her coffin was carried out to Andrea Bocelli’s Time To Say Goodbye.
Mrs Duffy was buried at Palmerstown Cemetery.
