A WOMAN believed to have been the oldest person in Northern Ireland has died following a short illness at the age of 109.
Ellen Lawther died at the Royal Victoria Hospital on Saturday.
She will be buried today following a funeral service at Roselawn Crematorium at noon.
Mrs Lawther, who was a mother of three and a great-grandmother, had been a resident at St Finnian's House on the Cregagh Road in her native east Belfast.
Born in 1909, at a time when women couldn't vote and partition had not yet taken place, Mrs Lawther grew up on the Woodstock Road and worked as a seamstress.
After marrying her husband Harold at the age of 24 she later moved to St Jude's Crescent, off the Ormeau Road.
During her lifetime, the Titanic was launched and two world wars took place.
In September 2015, Mrs Lawther was profiled in a documentary `Older Than Ireland' alongside 29 other Irish centenarians.
Speaking at the time about the secret to growing old, Mrs Lawther, who was then 106-year-old, said: "Being active and always busy. Keep yourself busy; that's all I can say."
It was also revealed that the east Belfast woman had never smoked or took a drink.
The film, by acclaimed film- maker Alex Fegan, which won rave reviews, featured men and women sharing their life's memories, from their birth at the dawn of Irish independence to their life as a centenarian in the modern world.
