Witness to 3 Centuries

"My grandmother Martha Holmes neé MacSheahan in the year 2000 received a medal "Witness to 3 Centuries" from President Mary McAleese. She was born in 1895 and died in 2004. She was the second oldest person in Ireland when she died. Martha was a Roman Catholic and her husband Fred Holmes was Church of Ireland and neither family approved of their wedding in 1922. When her husband died suddenly in 1944 the Parish Priest advised Martha not to attend the service for her husband in the Church of Ireland. She had the good sense to ignore this advice. "