Meet Leitrim's latest centenarian who has 13 cups of coffee per day

Leitrim's latest centenarian enjoys a daily crossword and has 12 to 13 cups of coffee each day, made on milk. 

Elizabeth (Betty) Mc Niffe of Ballinamore, recently celebrated her 100th birthday. She was born Elizabeth Kelly, on a small farm in Drumarigna, Aughawillan, just outside Ballinamore, Leitrim in 1925.

The New Irish Free State was just two years old and Fianna Fáil had not yet been set up. Elizabeth was reared in three different houses, attended five different schools and worked in three different countries by the time she got married in 1951.
As a three-year-old she was sent to Bailieboro for a year to live with an uncle.

Fr. Michael Kelly (who was Curate there) and his sister, Bess, who was his housekeeper. She then returned to Drumarigna and attended the local National School in Lisacarn, where she was taught by Susan Mc Gahern, mother of the future novelist, John. In fact, Elizabeth as a young girl, babysat in Mc Gaherns, and vividly remembers the young John, gallivanting around the place.

Aged eight in 1933 she was sent to Drung, outside Cootehill, to her Aunt Kate and her husband, Mick Conaty, who had no children.

Elizabeth spent three of the happiest years of her life here and fondly remembers the ‘great character’ her Aunt Kate was. Aged eleven, Elizabeth returned home to Drumarigna and this time attended the newly built Aughawillan National School, under Master Mc Tiernan.

Mrs Mc Niffe completing her daily crossword, along with a cup of coffee

Echoes of Goldsmith’s poem The Village Schoolmaster, spring to mind: Yet he was kind: or if severe … the love he bore to learning was in fault. Elizabeth did not leave National School till she was fifteen, having studied among other things algebra and a few Shakespearean plays.

There was no second level school in Ballinamore at the time. Her parents prioritised education for their children. They paid for Elizabeth to attend Ms. Maureen Gallagher’s ‘private school’ in Ballinamore, that taught shorthand, typing, Maths, Irish and book-keeping, for one year, 1941-42.

The long-awaited new Vocational School opened in 1942, but it had no premises. It rented a house in Church Street (coincidentally about thirty metres from where Elizabeth now resides). She attended there for the year 1942-43. She then went working in a nursing home in Lisburn for two years, ten hours per day, one half day per week, one day off per month. Elizabeth remembers the celebrations in Lisburn, on 8th May 1945 when the war in Europe ended.

In December 1945 she started her training to be a nurse in Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham, the second most bombed city in England. She loved England and felt you were judged by your work and not by your social class or connections. Her brother, the recently ordained, Fr. Micheál Kelly was working in a Birmingham parish at this time.

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After training, two of her sisters, Anne and Kathleen, also nurses, worked with her in a nursing home in Birmingham. In 1951 Elizabeth and her sister, Kathleen returned to work in Castlerea Hospital, part of Noel Browne’s Scheme to eradicate the scourge of tuberculosis. Over 3, 000 Irish people died from T.B in 1951 alone.

Elizabeth married Willie (Michael) Mc Niffe, from a few miles up the road in 1951. They came to live in Church Street Ballinamore, where they set up a small grocery shop. Willie also did hackney, frequently ferrying young people to Cobh in Cork, to catch the trans-Atlantic boats to America.

Almost half a million Irish people emigrated in the 1950s. He also hired out cars, sold radios, was an insurance broker as well as a part time car salesman for Jackson’s garage in Cavan.

Rural electrification was in full swing in the late fifties and early sixties. Wille was frequently called on ‘to wire’ houses, that was to install the electrical cable for light fittings and sockets.

In the early sixties they closed the shop and for the rest of his life, Willie was a full- time car salesman, with Jackson’s of Cavan, Martin’s of Corlough, and Smith’s (later P.M.P.A.) of Cavan, of which he was Manager in the early 1970s. He then set up his own garage, Ballinamore Motors in 1971. Elizabeth and Willie had four children, Micheál (Celbridge, Co. Kildare), Valerie (Ballymote, Co.Sligo), Liam (Kells, Co. Meath) and Christopher (Ballinamore). Willie died in 1973 at the young age of forty-six, with the youngest, Christopher, only seven years of age.

Elizabeth has since lived all her life in Church Street Ballinamore. She is the last of her own Kelly family. Her siblings, with one exception, had lengthy lives: Thomas Kelly, Keshcarrigan (99), Sean Kelly, Shercock (79), Anne Kelly, Ballinamore (78), Fr. Micheál Kelly (Kilmore Diocese) (88), Breeda Kelly, London (50), Kathleen Smyth, Ballinamore (91) and Mary Mc Hugh, Ballinamore (90).

Until a few years ago, Elizabeth attended any Whist Drives within a twenty-mile radius of Ballinamore. Her son Christopher lives with, and cares, for her. Her daughter Valerie, a retired nurse, spends a few days each week with her. Elizabeth has four children, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Elizabeth after her centenary Mass, celebrated by her nephew Mons. Liam Kelly and local Ballinamore P.P. Rev. Sean Mawn, surrounded by her family, as well as her nieces and nephews

She enjoys good health, does her crossword each day without fail, and reads the paper without the aid of glasses. A teetotaller, she and all her siblings were life-long members of the Pioneers.

An avid reader for the last ninety years, she never smoked and was always nimble and lithe. Her daily diet now includes about 12 or 13 cups of coffee, made on milk each day!!.
Having been born before the invention of television and now witnessing the arrival of artificial intelligence, Elizabeth has seen it all.

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