Limerick man celebrates his century of a life well-lived
“I'M NOT bad for a young fella,” laughed Michael McInerney as he welcomed the Limerick Leader for a chat before his 100th birthday.
Walking down the corridor with only a short wooden cane as an aid, Michael sat down in St Camillus' to discuss his life around his monumental birthday last Sunday.
Raised in St Munchin's parish, “by the Treaty stone,” he assured, Michael is a Limerick man through and through, and has lived, loved, worked and reared his own children in the very same county.
One of 10 children, Michael himself had four children, Brendan, Michael Jr, Kieran and one daughter, who he talked of with a twinkle in his eye, Noelle.
In his teens during the 30s, he laughed that he was “hunted out to work,” to earn for his large family, and earned his keep as an assistant at Lloyds groceries where they sold vegetables and bottled spirits.
In life, Michael says “without a shadow of a doubt, there are good times and there are bad times”. “One of the best times,” he continued, “was on that beautiful September morning when I was asked above in St Joseph's Church by the priest, 'Michael, do you take this lady from this day on to be your lawful wife?'”
His wife Maureen, who passed in 2019, married Michael in 1956, and he never looked back, or maybe “only when we were arguing,” he joked.
Getting to 100 years-old is an extraordinary feat, and the hurling and snooker fanatic shared a saying which has rung true to him, “short years quickly pass us by, we are walking along a path with no return.”
In short, it reminds him to keep spirits high, to remember the good times that have passed, and the good times to come, for 101 is only months away.