‘We were as happy as the days were long': Census links 105-year-old Limerick woman to living history
Bridget Landers née Hayes' memories form part of a living history she is now sharing with the National Archives as a Centenarian Ambassador
WITH the 1926 Census now released to the public, a remarkable thread of living history runs through the life of 105-year-old Bridget Landers née Hayes, who was five years old when the first census of the Irish Free State was conducted.
From meeting her husband at a dance hall to raising eight children, 105-year-old Bridget recalls a life rich in hard work and simple joys. Her memories form part of a living history she is now sharing with the National Archives as a Centenarian Ambassador.
Glenbrohane woman Bridget met her late husband Paddy Landers at a dance in Ballylanders in 1947. “I didn’t see him again for 12 months after that, because he had broken his leg helping a neighbour with a cow that had broke out. I don’t know, wasn’t it funny? Was it meant to be or what?”
The Limerick woman said they regularly went to dance halls and neighbours houses. Bridget and Paddy wed on November 25, 1949. “In those days, there was only the one ring, we’d no engagement rings, only a wedding ring,” said Bridget.
“We got married in my own church, Glenbrohane, we were only five minutes from the church. We’d only the two families, we went off to Limerick after to Cruises Hotel. There was music and dancing. There was a man hired out for the day to drive us there..”
Recalling a humorous anecdote, Bridget said: “There was the time the sow ate the wheel of Paddy’s bicycle right before he was off to the dance! The sow was going around the yard, I don’t know, was it pure devilment or what?
“I only dreamt of that two nights ago, how we laughed when he’d tell the story. He had to go and borrow a bike from Tom Lyons to go to the dance that night.”
Bridget enjoyed a happy marriage and home life with Paddy and their eight children. She reminisced: “It never came to me to complain, that I had to work hard, with eight of them around me.
“We were as happy as the days were long, we all helped each other, and Paddy was great with them.”
Bridget explained that everyone had big families years ago. “There was so much visiting, story-telling, dancing. We were so busy ploughing, sowing the vegetables, picking the spuds, milking the cows by hand, fattening pigs, all to be eaten at home.
“I can’t understand how now, and it a hundred years later, that there’s cabbage in the shops coming in from Spain!”