Special birthday celebration for 90-year-old Susie

The lockdown aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus pandemic did not prevent one Nenagh woman from celebrating a very special birthday on Monday.
Susie Shelly got to celebrate her 90th birthday with her five adult children on the rear lawn of her home in Tyone after getting the all clear to do so from An Garda Síochána.
The similarity of events on the year Susie was born on May 11th 1930 to the current state of world affairs could not be more striking. Susie's birth coincided with the first year of the Great Depression. Ninety years on we are being told the world is facing its greatest economic crash since back then when there were millions of job losses woldwide.
In the year Susie was born, politicians in the US had turned to protectionism in order to try to stem further job losses from competition abroad. Currently, US President Donald Trump is talking about bringing back US companies based in Ireland back home as part of his America first policy.
On the year Susie was born, Adolf Hitler was beginning to flex his political muscle as his National Socialists became the second largest party in Germany, ultimately provoking a devastating world war that would split Europe apart. Today the continent faces the greatest threat to its unity since the founding of the EEC.
So whoever it was it said that history repeats itself seemingly never spoke a truer word.
But on Monday of this week the sun shone from a blue sky as if the heavens themselves were celebrating with Susie and her family.
Susie and her Nenagh-based daughter, Helen, were joined by her other four adult children for the big celebration in Tyone.
Daughter Finola and son Brendan travelled from Cork. Another daughter, Pauline, arrived from Galway and her eldest son, Patrick, came from Meath to be with their mother on her very special day.
"Mother is in great form, just missing the visits from us all due to the restrictions," Finola told The Guardian.
Finola added that the family were highly conscious about the need to practice physical distancing while being present to mark their mother's nine decades of life.
"We got Garda permission to travel. They said it would be okay as long as we all behaved responsibly," Finola revealed.
"The big fear is that we could bring infection with us, so we decided from the outset that we were not even going to go into mum's house. It was literally a picnic sitting out in the garden with a few balloons, a few songs and a bit of cake."
Due to the restrictions the family decided to keep numbers down to the essential. Because of this it meant Susie's 14 grandchildren and six great grandchildren could not be present. "But hopefully we will have a real party when it's all over, " said Finola.
Susie, née Armitage, is herself a native of the locality, growing up in Newtown.
The eldest of the Armitage family, she is predeceased by her brother Henry who farmed in Newtown for many decades where her sister-in-law, Nancy, still resides.
Susie has four younger sisters who are all still living. And no doubt they were all with her in spirit on her brithday: Maureen who is in Moneygall; Phyll in Dublin and Christina in Ballinasloe. Her other sister, Breda, who lives in Newtown, did drop in to Susie's home to present her with a birthday cake.Susie, whose late husband, Pat, was the Postmaster in Nenagh, continues to enjoy robust health. A keen golfer for most of her life, she was Lady Captain of the local golf club in the mid-1980s and she continued to play the game late in to her life, only selling her clubs a few years back. A loyal reader of The Guardian all the years, we wish her a very happy birthday.