Peg marks milestone birthday surrounded by loving family at her home in Clonmel

Every day Peg Rossiter takes enormous pleasure from looking out from her sitting room window at the majestic view of the mountains that overlook her beloved Clonmel.

“I never tire of looking at the mountains,” said Peg as she reflected on a wonderfully fulfilling life after marking her 100th birthday last Friday week surrounded by her loving family.
Those spectacular mountains, which she and her husband John continued to walk well into their nineties, have inspired her characteristic sense of adventure, free spirit and fierce determination that shaped her extraordinary life.

She fondly remembers as a nine-year-old, accompanied by her sister Mary, exploring those mountains for the very first time one Sunday morning after Mass without parental permission.
“I loved mountains from an early age. I looked up and I wanted to see what was on the other side,” said Peg.

GLENARY
“We set off after Mass in our sandals and summer dresses. We got to the top and looked into the valley where we saw smoke coming from a chimney. At the time there were only two families living in Glenary. We met Mr Tom Bourke who brought us down the boreen and gave us curney cake and milk and showed us the way home again,” said Peg.

“We left at 10 am and were not home again until nearly 6pm to the consternation of my parents who had made enquiries from family and neighbours as to our whereabouts all day. I got the biggest telling off of my life, but that did not discourage me in the least from going again. Walking in the mountains was one of the greatest pleasures of my life,” said Peg.
She would have instilled that great curiosity and sense of adventure in her children from a young age.

“I told them that the world was a very big and interesting place and to go and see it. That is exactly what they did,” said Peg.
Her son John and his family came back from Canada where they live to visit Peg a few weeks ago while her daughters, Jane, who lives in America, and Elizabeth, who lives in Germany, and their families enjoyed a wonderful weekend with Peg after celebrating her birthday on Friday.

Peg said that she enjoyed being surrounded by her family for her birthday.
“There was about 25 family members there on Friday. Being with all of the extended family and thinking about the achievements of them all was lovely. Everybody was nice, so kind and very sweet.
“It was a special day,” said Peg.

Even though it was her 100th birthday milestone Peg reluctantly agreed to mark the big occasion with her family.
“I ignore birthdays as much as possible. However how many I have left, I will ignore them too,” insisted Peg.
“I remember my 40th birthday. I was up to my elbows in the sink. I told myself that I was old and I promised myself that I would never celebrate another birthday. This one crawled up on me,” said Peg.

With typical determination Peg kept her word making an exception only for the 100th celebration.
A woman who never smoked nor drank, Peg loved travelling the world.
“Exploring other countries - walking and coffee, that is what I enjoyed in life,” said Peg.
She recalls some of her early adventures and has very special memories of a cycling holiday in Normandy after the war.

FIRST TRIP
“That was my first trip, it was marvellous. We stayed in hostels which were a wonderful way to travel and see the world,” said Peg.
Italy was one of her favourite countries to experience because of the vibrancy of the culture.

She found Finland a fascinating place to visit and expresses great joy at their decision to join NATO.
“They seem so like the Irish with a similar history and very modest people. I think we should join NATO as well,” said Peg.
A wonderful conversationalist, Peg still gets great enjoyment out of discussing global and local issues.
Reflecting on major changes in society in Ireland, Peg points to the introduction by Donogh O’Malley of free secondary school education as one of the most important political decisions taken in her lifetime. “It was a very important breakthrough and it resulted in huge change and it is not unrelated to our current prosperity,” said Peg.
Peg names Jack Lynch as the Irish politician she admired most for what he achieved for the country.
“To me Jack Lynch was the most impressive Taoiseach this country has had because he had to confront a lot of people in his own party and dealt with them very bravely,” said Peg.

THE NATIONALIST
Writing about politicians, giving her opinion on the global and local issues of the day and generating debate through her writing in The Nationalist brought her great joy throughout her life.

She has a great devotion to The Nationalist and high regard for all of the staff who worked there.
Her first editor was Willie Darmody and over many decades Peg became very much part of the identity of the paper as her widely read columns were often the first item readers looked for when they opened the paper.

She started writing when she was seventeen sending articles to the Irish Press, the Independent and Ireland’s Own.
“Then the war came and papers shrank and I started writing again in the seventies and the then editor Brendan Long gave me the column to do in the early eighties,” said Peg.
Peg, who also worked as a court stenographer for a long number of years, achieved much acclaim and numerous accolades for her columns over the decades.

Peg, the eldest of four children in a family reared on Heywood Road where her family had lived since 1842, is a visionary, a woman ahead of her time.
YOU HAVE A VOICE
“Stand up and give your opinion. You have a voice, use it,” was the advice Peg gave her young children.
At 100-years-old, Peg continues to lead by example as her voice, thankfully, is as powerful as it ever was.