John Feerick

To know Mary was to love her as my children and grandchildren did, with children remembering her kindnesses when they studied in England and found with her and Kevin a home away from home in Leeds. Their visits to America and Uncle Pat were priceless, as was their presence at his last birthday in Ireland, sitting next to him joined by other family members, a picture of which appears in my memoir. When they returned to Ireland, thanks to Kevin Feerick giving them the home in upper Culmore in which our mother was raised as well as Kevin Boyle’s father, they became our family anchors on visits to Ireland. And when I received County’s Mayo’s first disapora award it was Mary to whom I asked to step in for me and receive it. How I remember also Mary’s and Kevin’s joy when they opened their new home in Foxford and Uncle Pat and I made our first visit there. Joy also for me were Mary and Kevin’s trips to Belfast showing American law students in a summer law program on party night how the Irish could dance, and dance Mary did. Faculty and students of that summer program will long remember that night. My summer program weekends in her home have left me with indelible beautiful person.
She was welcoming, hospitable, caring, compassionate, kind and had a generous manner. Humble and religious, she touched everyone with her laugh and humor. John