Brigid McGilloway was born in January 1929 to David and Celia McGilloway, Lougherbraghy, Malin Head. She was the fourth of nine children, and her father was a small farmer on marginal land near the Ben Gorms cliffs. He kept a few cows, some sheep and two horses for farm work and cut turf on the nearby hill for themselves and for sale. They lived in a traditional two roomed thatched cottage. Brigid’s mother, Celia, looked after the house and the children – baking, churning, knitting and spinning their own wool. Celia and Brigid’s older sisters crocheted lace – gloves and trimmings for soutanes and altar cloths. Brigid went to Urblereagh National School when she was six, a walk of three miles from her home. It was a three-teacher school and lessons were mostly through Irish. Religion played a natural part in their lives, both at school and at home, from the family Rosary at night and the making of St Brigid’s crosses, to the trip in the jaunting car to Lagg Church on Sunday mornings for Mass. Brigid enjoyed school and had a happy childhood with her siblings, until her older sister, Sadie died after a year’s illness, when she was aged 18 and Brigid 14. On completing her Primary Certificate, her teacher, Master Jimmy Doherty (Jack), gave her special lessons after school so that she could sit the Civil Service entrants exam, which she duly passed. Brigid wanted to work in Donegal and, as there was only one Civil Service position available in the county that year, which she didn’t get, she went to work in Malin Head Post Office in 1947, where she quickly became one of the family. She then worked in Culdaff Post Office from 1950 to 1954. As a young woman, Brigid had many friends and enjoyed socialising and dancing like all the other young people her age, and had several boyfriends. Aged 25, Brigid entered the Convent of Mercy in Newry, Co Down, on December 8, 1954. She was received on July 14, 1955, professed on July 19, 1957, and made her final profession as Sr Teresa in the convent chapel in
Remembering Malin Head’s Sr Teresa: Brigid McGilloway
