Four generations of one family came together to celebrate the recent 100th birthday of County Fermanagh native Eileen Sweeney.

The centenarian was delighted to be joined by her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren as she marked her special milestone birthday at the Burrendale Hotel in Newcastle, Co. Down on Saturday, September 11.

Born on September 9, 1921 to William and Kate (née Corrigan) Quigley at Laragh, near Bellanaleck, Enniskillen, Eileen was the youngest child and is the only surviving member of a family of four girls and one boy. They were May, Martin, Anne, Kitty and Eileen.

Horse and trap

She clearly recalls her childhood on the farm in Laragh, where she helped build rucks of hay and has a clear memory of the horse and trap which her father spent hours preparing for the family to travel together.

The family farmed cattle and pigs, with the products sold at the Scotch Store in Enniskillen.

Eileen attended school in her earliest days in Rossdoney, where her uncle Richard Corrigan was the head teacher or Master, as he was called. This was some miles from her home so initially she stayed with her grandmother in Rossdoney, where her sister was already living.

When her grandmother died, she returned to her family home and she travelled to school on a horse drawn wagon, which belonged to Jones Memorial School.

Mount Lourdes

She later went to Mount Lourdes Convent in Enniskillen, where she followed a Commercial Course. Following school, she found employment in an accountants office, McNeary Rasdale. She then moved to Wellworth’s office in January 1940 and was there doing the book keeping during the war years.

In 1946, she left Wellworths and briefly worked in Bennetts, before hearing about an opportunity in an insurance company, which was later subsumed into the new Ministry of Social Services in 1948. She did this job until she married Mark Sweeney, a farmer from Kinmore, Lisnaskea on August 27, 1956.

As a Civil Servant, she had to give up her job when she got married, something which she always regretted and felt was unfair. Mark and Eileen had three children, Thomas (Tom), Mairéad and Mark. She dedicated her life as a homemaker to looking after the family, working on the farm and doing farm accounts.

Her husband Mark died in December 1988 but Eileen stayed on in Kinmore and valued the support of her extended family and neighbours, while her children worked in other parts of the country and abroad. In 2010 she moved to Crossgar to be nearer to her children and grandchildren.

BBC documentary

Eileen featured in the BBC NI documentary, True North - The First Generation, televised in 2020. In the programme, Eileen told of her early days at school in the 20s and 30s and the war years in the 40s in Enniskillen, with blackouts on all car lights and windows, and butter, tea and sugar smuggled across the border.

Her thoughts at the end of the programme were that she had “no regrets in her life”!

As Eileen celebrates her milestone birthday, her family commented that it is her tremendous zest for life, her interest and caring for the people around her and her determination to face and embrace new challenges that has characterised her whole life and ensured she is the amazing 100 year old lady she is today.