By Dan Walsh
A prayer of remembrance was read at Masses in Bree Church last weekend as the congregation learned of the sad passing of Molly Leacy at her home in Manchester last Wednesday. A native of Bree who never lost contact with her birthplace, she was in her 103rd year.
Born at Knockduff Lane, near Bree, on June 1st, 1922, she was christened Mary Ellen Hogan, but she was always affectionately called Molly Hogan (even after her marriage) and was the daughter of Ellen Hogan who worked at Doyle’s of Carrig. She never knew her father!
Molly’s grandparents delivered the post on foot in the Bree area and were paid nine shillings (less than 50 cent in today’s currency) per week to live on.
In 1928, Molly first attended the old two-room school on Bree Lane where Master and Mrs Breen were the teachers, and a stove kept the school warm! She could read and write when she left at the age of 14 in search of work.
There was no work for Molly in the first year after leaving school, she took a season’s work in Tramore, before returning to her native Bree to work at Warren’s of Clonmore House, beside St. John’s Church, for six years and then work with the Curtis family at Knockduff. According to Molly both chores were similar; “milking cows, making butter and cleaning from 7 o’clock in the morning till 7 o’clock in the evenings – seven days a week!”
Molly emigrated by ship through Dun Laoghaire in 1949, renewed her friendship with Tom Leacy of Kilgibbon and they married in St. John’s Church, Chelmsford, and they settled down and raised a family in Salford, Manchester.
Locally, she was always known as Molly Hogan. She paid almost yearly visits to her native parish over the years where she would catch up with family and friends to reminisce about the different times that they experienced growing up in rural Co. Wexford.
On June 1st, 2022, Molly celebrated her 100th birthday with her family and friends at her home in Manchester and in September of that year realised an ambition that fulfilled every dream she ever hoped for – a centenary visit to her birth townland at Knockduff that was topped off with a special celebration Mass in Bree Church, where she was baptised a century earlier, and invited to speak to the pupils in Bree National School.
Growing up in Knockduff the Hogan’s and Walsh’s were close neighbours and on Molly’s final visit home one of the family’s wishes was that I would record her life and times. This duty was fulfilled on September 30th, 2022 when we met in Bree Community Centre and with the family permission here are the edited highlights from that interview…
FAMILY NOTICE; MOLLY LEACY (née Hogan), Cadishead, in the city of Salford, Greater Manchester, who passed away on Wednesday, November 6th, 2024, peacefully at her home. Beloved wife of the late Thomas, mother of Tom, Sarah, Pat, Martin, Michael, Helen and the late John and Jimmy, great-grandchildren, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends. May She Rest in Peace.
Funeral arrangements to be announced later.
WexfordLocal.com 