Farewell to an Athboy institution
MEATHMAN'S DIARY: John Donohoe remembers the late Maureen Phelan
The passing of Athboy's Maureen Phelan simply has to be recorded in the pages of the local newspaper. She was an institution in the town, and beyond, and one of those people who became unofficial local historians and geneaologists due to her huge knowledge of the people and places of the district.
One of the reasons for this is that her mother and grandmother were both midwives in the district, and delivered a multitude of babies, with Maureen's grandmother, Mrs Coleman, arriving just in time to help deliver Maureen at six o'clock on a Friday evening in 1934. Nurse Geraghty had just left her mother to visit another labouring woman.
Her grandmother had retired as a midwife at the age of 80, just before Maureen was born, and allowed her true age to remain under the radar when talking to the health officials, Maureen told Eimear Harte-Miggin in the Athboy Anois magazine a decade ago.
With her own mother also a midwife, she recalled “there could be a rap at the door at any hour and transport provided by way of an old bicycle or ass and cart, and there was a large area to cover, from Rathmore, up to Cloneylogan near Raharney".
There weren't many phones - if any, and no motor cars to get around. Maureen didn't follow in their profession, as women were by then having their babies in hospital, and there wasn't the same demand for a midwife.
However, a valuable piece of local history she preserved was the delivery records kept by her mother and grandmother, a massive resource for anybody tracing their roots.
Growing up, Maureen was involved in the family shop, Lambe's on Main Street (she is still known as Maureen Lambe to a certain generation), and recalled the fair days and visitors to the market town of her childhood, conjuring up images of a thriving community. On the street were hawkers selling sheet music sheets, kitchenware, and of course, the dealers selling cattle.
Lambe's shop produced home made ice-cream, and she recalled one girl buying some and then getting all excited because it started melting – it was a new experience.
Lambe's was important socially too – the shop remained open late, served through the wartime rations period, offered credit, and was a central point of information and knowledge sharing.
Maureen went to second level school in Trim, travelling on Brogan's milk van, later taking over her father's shop. She met her husband, Fred Phelan, and they married in 1952, going on to have a family of 10. Fred and two of their children, Seanie and Michael, predeceased her. Her family have been caring for Maureen in recent years at her home on Main Street, “the centre of the universe, where everything happened” as she described it.
A visit to Athboy was never complete without calling into say hello to Maureen, and the heartfelt and genuine tributes appearing on RIP this week, in advance of Wednesday's funeral, show how much she will be missed.