A real work ethic

The centre of Kitty Brilley's life for all of her life has been her family and her more than five decades working in various places, most notably her years as a cook in the former Royal Hoey Hotel. Kitty McGrath started her Athlone life as a toddler in Percy Cottages, as the eldest of her family, which encompassed siblings, John, Ann, Joan and Olive. Ann is the only living member remaining with Kitty. The work ethic that Kitty inherited from her father, Paddy McGrath, who was born in Irishtown, Athlone over one hundred years ago. Paddy worked with local builders, Duffys Contractors, and also on the building of Ss Peter and Paul's Church in the early 1930s. He joined the British Army, and was in the Battle of Dunkirk during World War 11, and later worked on British Rail. "My mother, Annie, whose maiden name was Lennon, worked everywhere also, including in Miss Prices in Church Street, where she was a nanny to the children there, and that's where she met my father when he was doing a job there," said Kitty. Kitty's mother came from Co. Wicklow originally, and her grandfather, Paddy Lennon, worked in DE Williams in Tullamore, making porter barrels. Kitty started school in St. Peter's School, and when the family moved to the east-side of town, she made her first holy communion in St. Mary's Church. Kitty and her siblings were brought up in Sarsfield Square, Athlone, and she went to the Bower school. The bower nuns were titled 'Madame' for most of the last century, and Kitty was a member of Madame Finbarr's Choir in the late 1930s. She also learned cooking skills in the Bower Day school with Madame Joseph, which was the beginning of her training for later years as a cook. "It was nice and we made buns and colcannon and worked on different things, like preparing the kitchen, and we had another nun, Madame Vangelis teach us needle work," said Kitty. "We used to go to ten o'clock mass in St Mary's and that's where we sang in the choir, and we also went to the children's sodality once a month in the church. We weren't pressurised to go, and it was good for us, and I wouldn't say a bad word against the nuns, because we learned a lot there." The McGraths were one of the first families in Sarsfield Square in the late 1930s, and Kitty said the neighbours were always close in the terrace, and that it was a nice place to grow up. "We shopped in Paddy Heffernan's little sweet shop down near the railway bridge at St Mel's Terrace, and there was great matches down the back at St. Mel's Park," said Kitty. "We could play in Mackens field, which is where the Social Welfare office now is, opposite St. Mel's Terrace. There was a pond in the field there, and it was a lovely place to go for a walk." Kitty remembers the marts in town, and sheep running all around St. Mary's Square, and outside the Royal Hoey hotel, and the horse fair up in Connaught Street. "There was many places to walk in Athlone then, we could go down the Curragh Lane behind Sarsfield, and out the low road by the Bower, and you could walk to Cornamagh graveyard, and out by Cornamaddy School, and the walks were easy to us, we just walked everywhere," said Kitty. " One of Kitty's first jobs was working was for the family of BBC journalist and presenter, Henry Kelly, who was also the host of TV's, 'Going for Gold'. Kelly who now appears on Sky News and BBC Radio, lived in Glenavon Terrace, and Kitty looked after him when he was a young child. Kitty married Matt Brilley from Killucan, who was a cousin of Fr. Joe Brilley, who is parish priest in Drumraney, and the couple had four children, though sadly two, Aidan and Maeve died in infancy. Kitty, who has been a widow for twenty-six years, has one son, Patrick and a daughter Caroline. "I had three of my children when I went to work in the Woollen Mills, and followed my sister, Joan in there," said Kitty. "I was in there for about ten years until it closed in the 1960's. I worked in the drawing-in part of the factory, where I started working at the cones, and then made wool, which had to be refined. There was a great atmosphere in the Woollen Mills, which was on the site where the Radisson Hotel is now, and the staff were good people." Kitty and her family moved into Assumption Road in the very early days of the terrace's existence, and remembers that most of the people in the area were from married quarters in Custume Barracks. She remains living in Assumption Road to this day with her son, Patrick and his wife, Rose and granddaughter, Claire. During Kitty's Woollen Mills years, she also worked on Saturday in the Royal Hoey Hotel as a cook, because there were many tour groups going into the hotel at weekends. Kitty didn't find the wages great in the Weirside, and when the factory closed down, Kitty was happy to go working in England. She went to live with her sister, Ann in Catford, South East London in England, and said that she'd stay a short time, and be home in Athlone by Christmas. But she didn't return for ten years! Kitty worked as a cook for the Metropolitan Police in Greenwich Village, London, and while she loved living in the UK, she returned to Athlone, because her father got sick, and her mother was not able to look after him. Paddy McGrath died in December 1975, and Kitty then returned to work in the Royal Hoey Hotel, and remained there, well beyond retiring age, for a further thirty years until the hotel closed in 2005. Kitty's mother, who also lived with her in Assumption Road, died in 1984. "I worked on weddings and parties in the Royal, and the Athlone Musical Society and the Drama Festival groups all met there after the shows," said Kitty. "I met a lot of people, because I used to do the cloakroom for the Sunday dance crowd during the Big Band era." Kitty mixed with the cast of the movie, 'The First Great Train Robbery', who were staying at the hotel in 1977. She had great praise for Sean Connery, Lesley Anne Down and Donald Sutherland and other members of the cast. While she had to be there for the cast to have breakfast at 4 am, before they went to the movie set at Moate Railway Station, Kitty said that the cast tipped the hotel staff well. "In the hotel, they had to put two beds together for Donald Sutherland, because he was so tall," laughed Kitty. "We also had other stars in the hotel like Eamon Andrews who presented 'This Is Your Life', Frank Kelly of 'Fr Ted', and Mick Lally from 'Glenroe'." In her hotel years, she managed to have dinners ready on Sunday evenings for groups coming back from Knock Shrine. "There wasn't many other places open then in the evening, and the Galway races people used to come into the hotel, and the dance bands playing there had to have a meal so we were always busy," she said. Kitty's main hobby is knitting, and she has been involved in the Athlone Knitting Club, which is run by Angela Byrne, in the old parochial house in Chapel Street, for the past ten years. She knits everything, like cardigans, blankets, quilts and baby clothes. Kitty Brilley is 81 years old, doesn't drive, and walks from her home in Assumption Road to town on many days of the week. Her work ethic and attitude to life is a positive example to people many decades her junior.