ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VIII, Issue 437, 24 February 1875, Page 3

ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN.

To use the verbage of the Spiritualists, a woman worn with years and weary of the battle, has passed peacefully to that other land where "the wicked ceaao from troubling, und the weary are at rea£," And of a verity, the soul which has had its daily contact with the world, its petty cares, and sordid meannesses, for a hundred and fourteen years can well be content to leave the frame that it has tenanted for so long a period, and seek its rest whether in the celestial plains of Turner, or the silence of the philosopher, matters little. In 1761, when yet the fires which convulsed Europe in the latter part of the century were smouldering, when the vast resources of the great American continent was comparatively unknown ; when locomotion by means of steam was unheard of, and when the Pilgrim fathfirs we're battling in the rich country of the now great Northern States of America with the primitive possessors of the Boil — the Delawares and the Sioux — there was born jn the little village of Kilroran, in the county of Galway, in the country of Ireland, a child whose fate it has been to see one nation spring into a great and vigorous life, and to witness what Henry Kingsley in Geoffery Hamlyn calls the " foundation of a great uid mighty empire." %In tne new world of the south, and the greater new world of the north, the simple Irish maiden, Mary, O'Brien, whose early dreams could not have soared beyond the thatched cottage of her birth, has' played her part, played it well, and played it outi To think what this woman must j have seen and known gives pause. Married before the year of Ireland's greatest struggle, the year of which the unrivalled pen of Lever has told so j much in The O'Donoghue, she was a mother in '98. In all she had eight children, and to these she seems to have clung with, that almost pister-human energy and devotion waich characterizes the Irish race. Emigrating to America in 1799, and taking her children with her, she resided there till she was 99 years of age, and there had the honor of seeing four generations around her. Had she remained there till her death it is believed she would have been able to have seen the descent of her family at least to the fifth, if not the sixth, generation. However, at 99 years this really extraordinary woman left America for Irelaad, to join her son, Mr. W. McCarthy, of Back Breek. He, by the way, is ier youngest child, and. is 64 years of ace. Landing on her native shore, she walked 16 Irish miles from the nearest railway station to her native village. Fifteen years ago she came to this colony, and las resided in Bendigo since that time. Of late years, her memory of the past aas been very vivid. Forgetful from dsy to day of passing events, she yet could chat with freedom of those stirring times when it was penal for a Roman Catholic to be found within ten miles of the city of Dublin ; and when, if a priest rode a horse worth a £100, he was obliged to sell it to the first Protestant who demanded it. for £5. To the end her faculties were peifect^ Her last request, made some four or five days since, was that she might be buried in Kilroran, her native place. Three or four years since, her sight failed her, but she' never wore spectacles, and, about two years ago, it returned as with the renewal of, a last youth. She was then able to thread a needle at a common tallow candle ; and, up to almost the latest moment, she was capable of hearing even the whispered communications of her son, in whose house she died. For a man of 64 to be able to attend the funeral obsequies at the remains of his mother is given to few; but such a sight may be seen to-day at Mrs. McCarthy's funeral, which will take place at the White Hills Cemetery. The deceased, it should be stated, is the grandmother of Mrs. Ready, the wife of Mr. Ready, of the Rainbow Hotel, Har-greaves-street. — " Bendigo Advertiser."