The club has a tradition of paying respect to members when they pass from this world and our Thursday night captain, Dave Terry, in his respectful few words with a minute of silence touched our very thoughts when he said he thought Madge would live for ever. Madge was after all a person we admired as she overcame any health issues that faced her, never complaining and would turn up to play looking elegant and as if she had not a pain in the world and yet she had.
Madge was born in Co. Leitrim, educated in the St. Louis Secondary School Monaghan, became a teacher and married another teacher, Joe from Offaly, and they settled in Malahide sixty years ago. They had six children, four now living in Australia with two living locally, Marian and Angela, members of MRBC, who have followed Madge in her love of the game of Bridge.
It was Madge who introduced me to Bridge and on her persuasion I joined MRBC for the Opening - even before taking a lesson. She was persuasive and I would not have been the only one she persuaded. She was an ambassador for bridge, quietly helping many to progress including Marian and Angela and her son in law Brian. She would have a table available in her home for the enthusiastic player wanting to learn more. She was DNR Intermediate Secretary to the national executive when the DNR was formed in the late eighties. In that role she encouraged intermediates and was instrumental in a packed room for regional intermediate competitions, her powers of persuasion being yet again to the fore. She later became DNR President representing MRBC.
I was fortunate, along with Lily McHugh, to be her regular partner over many years but her ‘real’ bridge partner was the late Joe Walsh whom she played with in our club, in the Civil Service and Portmarnock and they were a formidable and successful pair at national, regional and club competitions long before I took up Bridge.
Her concentration to the very end was sharp, just a fraction of a point from winning Donat O’Brien’s President’s Prize and I just wish I had made 4spades plus one against Willie Kehoe and Pat Dunne but I didn’t! Madge as a competitive player in full swing last May did ask why! She was amazing, she played as a champ and although very competitive she valued friendship through competition which is our motto. Caradas Trí Iomaíocht.
Madge was predeceased by her husband Joe, her life partner, who should never be forgotten by us as he designed and tended to the garden around the club and was on call as a keyholder for Bar supplies and for when the alarm would go off, as it often did in those days. Joe was a social player partnering among others Eileen Mooney and Bridie McNulty but he(they) did not dare beat Madge at the Bridge table.
It was a magic moment at the start of Fr Des’ homily when he referred with respect to Madge as Mrs Kinahan, she taught his sisters in Rush and to Joe as Mr Kinahan, his teacher in third class. Fr Des spoke of the stability Madge provided to her pupils showing faithfulness and goodness while all the time muti tasking as a teacher and headmistress, a home maker and then an avid Bridge and Golf player. None of this was a surprise.
In truth it was no surprise either that Madge donated her body to Science. She had after all defied the many health challenges and doctors wondered at her strength in recoveries and on one occasion, that I know of, wondered if her age before them was accurate. Madge was young at heart, an example to us all and it would also be no surprise if Doctors at the College of Surgeons learn valuable information from her donating her body to Science.
At her funeral, her grandson Neil, humorously captured the person of Madge, her love of family, her true vocation as a teacher, her love of travel, her charitable works (although she did not speak of these), her sometimes mischievous nature, her inspiration to her grandchildren and great grandchildren, her loyalty to friends she made through Golf and Bridge and to Padre Pio to whom she credited her recovery from cancer, through his intercession and her reason to visit San Giovanni three times to give thanks.
In life we have a few friends and many acquaintances and for me Madge was the former in abundance, a loyal and true friend. I valued her as a Bridge partner and as a friend and I am not alone in missing her from our Bridge tables in MRBC. She is already missed.
Our sympathy goes to Marian, Angela, Carmel, Michéal, Úna, Grainné, her sister Adeline, her 11 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, her loving carers Lynn and Christine.
May Madge Rest in Peace.
Mary Kelly Rogers
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