Wicklow Born Centurion Sarah Coyle Has Died As Ireland's Oldest person

Sarah Coyle was born in Knockatomcoyle, Co Wicklow and lived an extraordinary life before her passing at the age of 108

Ireland’s oldest woman, Wicklow-born Sarah Coyle has died at the age of 108. Mrs Coyle was born in Knockatomcoyle, near Shillelagh in Co Wicklow on July 24th in the year of the Easter Rising of 1916.

She died peacefully surrounded by her family in Co Dublin yesterday, just ten days shy of her 109th birthday. She grew up in Coolkenno in Tullow, Co. Carlow before her family moved to Dublin at the age of 17.

She married her husband Tom Coyle in 1950. Her husband's name remarkably close to that of her birthplace. She lost her sight in 1947 at the age of 40.

Despite that her family said she lived independently for much of her life following her husband’s death in 1986.

Mrs Coyle has two children, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Mrs Coyle had been living with her daughter, Marian Galligan, in Castleknock, Co Dublin, for some years. Her son, Patrick, lives in Australia.

She received eight Presidential medals in life, one for the year she turned 100 as well as one for each year since.

In a remarkably full life, Mrs Coyle is said to wowed people by recounting stories from the War of Independence as well as World War II rationing. She is almost unique in living through two pandemics. 

A funeral mass for Mrs Coyle will be held in Blanchardstown this week, before she is laid to rest alongside her late husband in Glasnevin Cemetery.