Born: January 5th, 1924
Died: May 19th, 2026
“When someone dies at 102 it cannot be described as tragic, and certainly Phyl would not want us to grieve but to remember all the positive contributions she made in those years,” so said the late Phyllis McDonald’s daughter Brenda.
She was speaking at her mother’s funeral in St Michael’s Church, Dún Laoghaire, on May 22nd.
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Almost 50 years ago, in 1978, Phyl McDonald joined Dún Laoghaire’s Active Retirement Association (ARA), the first in Ireland, which made her the longest-serving member of the oldest established branch in the country.
The ARA is a voluntary organisation for retired and semi-retired people, with more than 24,000 members in Ireland ranging in age from 50 to over 100. McDonald was 54 when she joined the Dún Laoghaire branch at its second meeting, and soon was very active, becoming a class captain, vice-president, and then president of Dún Laoghaire ARA from 1993 to 1996.
She herself recalled how “Dún Laoghaire has always had a high percentage of older people”, many of whom were “isolated or lonely”. In response to this, priests and people at St Michael’s parish in the town began the process which led to the first ARA being set up on February 9th, 1978.
“St Michael’s Church was very important to the community. It was always packed and at one stage we had seven priests in the town,” she said. Her mother Annie went to 7 o’clock Mass there every day, which was “commonplace” at the time.
At the ARA in Dún Laoghaire, “from the beginning it was decided that the organisation would be run by members for members”, she remembered. Among events organised were language classes, gardening, and cookery classes, with bowls, bridge and creative writing soon very popular too.
She accepted all the ups and downs of life with the simple philosophy that it was God’s will
— Phyllis McDonald’s daughter Brenda
While president at Dún Laoghaire ARA, and the first woman in that role, she was awarded the Irish Life National Volunteer Award with then Dún Laoghaire Community College [in 1993] for promoting adult education.
This followed what she described as “the tie-up with Community College” during her presidency, whereby, in return for free tuition, ARA members staffed the college library and canteen five days a week. “We all loved that,” she said.
She also helped set up a branch of the ARA in Gorey, Co Wexford, and, being a fan of outdoor and indoor bowls, she was involved with setting up the south Dublin Bowls League.
Tony McCarthy, an ARA member since 2007 who became a good friend, recalled McDonald as “a great woman, very cheerful. I never saw her angry at anyone or unpleasant. Always helpful, a great guide and listener, she didn’t push herself and remained active until recently”. In her various roles, he recalled, “I never saw governance like it.”
Almost as old as the State, McDonald was a Dún Laoghaire woman through and through. Born Phyllis Owens there in January 1924, she grew up on Patrick Street in the town with her parents John and Annie, twin sisters Peg and Ka, and cousin Megan. Hers was what she would describe as an “idyllic” childhood, playing tennis, camogie, and swimming during the summers at Dún Laoghaire Baths.
“Dún Laoghaire was a beautiful place to grow up and I would not have wished to live anywhere else,” she would write later in the collection ‘A Window to My World’, published by Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, in association with the county council.
Her father was the equivalent of a community welfare officer today, and the only person on Patrick Street with a car.
McDonald attended school at St Joseph’s on Tivoli Road, followed by two years at Potters’ Secretarial School on George’s Street. Then, at 16, she had her first job as cashier at the new Astoria Cinema in Glasthule. She was there for 5½ years and “loved every minute of it”.
She moved on to IMCO cleaners in Booterstown, working in wages, where she remained until she married Joe McDonald in 1947 and had to give up her job. They had three children, Brenda, Mary and Paddy.
In later life both she and Joe joined the ARA and, still later, the Dún Laoghaire Bowling Club in Moran Park.
Her affection for her hometown never dimmed, recalling in later life that “walking the pier was always one of my favourite pastimes. Today the seafront is fantastic and a tribute to the council’s vision. The Lexicon is a wonderful facility and it is great to see so many young people using it”. Her only concern was for George’s Street in the town. “It would be great if it managed to regain some of its original charm.”
At her funeral Mass in St Michael’s Dún Laoghaire, her daughter Brenda recalled that McDonald’s “deep faith meant everything to her. She accepted all the ups and downs of life with the simple philosophy that it was God’s will”.
[ Quality of life rises with age, Dún Laoghaire retirement group hearsOpens in new window ]
Writing of that faith herself in A Window to My World, she said: “My religion is very important to me. I am a Catholic and I brought my children up as Catholics. I am old-fashioned in my way but very broad-minded and liberal in my thinking. I believe it’s important that people are free to choose how to live their lives.”
But, with 10 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren, she worried about coming generations. Her grandchildren often asked what she did all day as a child without computer games or technology. “I tell them how we were happy to make our own fun, playing with our friends. We may not have had many material things but our imaginations were always active. It was a simpler life, a better life.”
Not unusually, in that and other contexts, she too “would love to come back in 100 years and see what it’s like”.
