Mrs Rose Devlin

MRS Rose Devlin, of 36 Ardmeen Green, Downpatrick, passed away in May 2015. Although a resident of the estate for 44 years she was very much a daughter of Saul parish.

She was the daughter of Thomas and Jane McGreevy and was born in June 1928.

She grew up in more financially straitened times in a labourer’s cottage at Ballintogher at the foot of Saul Mountain. There was no electricity and water came from a well.

Rose’s family extended one beyond her brothers and sisters. Her Belfast cousins stayed with them during World War 2 to avoid the Blitz and always remained close.

Rose was a very intelligent woman but had to leave school at an early age because grammar school education was a luxury beyond her beloved widowed mother’s purse pre the 1945 Labour Government’s education reforms.

She started work as a hairdresser with the late Jean Welshman whose salon was at the corner of Bridge Street and English Street.

In 1953 she married Maurice and after a short spell living near Mearne Well moved to Saul Circle where she made many friends.

Maurice and Rose were devout Catholics, but their neighbourly sensitivity was best represented by a decision not to fly Marian or Papal flags on the day of the annual High Mass on the Mountain as they did not wish to cause no offence to non-Catholics.

The children walked from the Circle to Saul to be taught by the Miss Smyths. After school the children of the Circle played football or cricket in the improbably sloped field at the foot of Ballysugadh Road.

The family moved to St Tassach’s Gardens, Raholp, in 1963. Eight years later they moved again to Ardmeen Green to help her daughters get the grammar school education which she was denied.

It was hard work being the mother of eight children in the 1950s and 60s. Rose had to hand wash every item of clothes. There were no driers or convenience foods or fridges. Food had to be grown or accessed daily.

Rose  sent her children to Downpatrick cricket ground every Saturday with the late P.J. Lennon to watch the 1960s Downpatrick XI and help encourage a healthy body and a healthy mind.  After Sunday Mass at either Saul or Carlin, and dinner, the children walked to the Jockey’s Four Roads to watch the Saul XVs of the day.

She sent all eight of her children to grammar school and then to university. She believed in education and also in reading for its own sake.

After her youngest daughter started Saul Primary School Rose started to work as a librarian in St Patrick’s Grammar School in Saul Street.  She learnt to type and cycled in and out daily from Raholp.

She moved on to the Downe Hospital as an auxilliary nurse. Caring was her primary call and many of her grateful patients were at her funeral.

She was a nurse to Maurice in his declining years and upon his death went to work as a volunteer in the local cancer charity shop in St Patrick’s Avenue.

By this stage she was part and parcel of Ardmeen Green where she loved and was loved by her neighbours. In  her last few years she suffered illness and was cared for by her youngest daughter and a lovely team of careers, especially Martina Carville.

Her daughter, Conac, would drive her around, rekindling memories of her life in Raholp, Loughs Head, Keelan, Kilclief, Myra and other places before taking her on a daily basis to Maurice’s grave.

At the end the staff of Ringdufferin Nursing Home and the priests of Saul and Downpatrick parishes, especially Fr Kearney, could not have been kinder. Ar dheis De go raibh a h-anam dilis.