"Everywhere I went they just said no. But when I came to your mummy she said yes."
The stories about Dympna McCague’s generosity were repeated again and again in the days before her funeral.
This remarkable Armagh woman may have stood just over 5ft tall but she leaves an enormous legacy in her home city.
A true matriarch, both for her family and community, she was a person of enormous strength, warmth and compassion who expended every last ounce of energy on the welfare of others.
Sometimes it was in the political sphere – a long-time Sinn Féin activist, she loved her country and believed passionately in equality for all – but she strove to make a difference in every part of her life.
Born in Armagh city in 1957, Dympna was politicised early.
The second oldest of 11 children, she was 14 when her father Peter Corrigan was taken from their home and interned on the Maidstone prison ship.
Dympna had to end her schooling, to the great disappointment of the Sacred Heart nuns, and take a factory job to help provide for the family.
She compiled a scrapbook of that tumultuous time and began selling the Republican News and Easter lilies, a practice she maintained even in the final stages of cancer treatment.
The family endured regular threats and harassment and in 1982 her father was shot dead, five days after acting as an assembly election agent for Sinn Féin. He had been walking to the labour exchange with his son Martin, who would be gunned down eight years later.
Dympna always sought to keep her father’s memory alive, with the local Sinn Féin cumann named after him.
But her impact spread far beyond republican circles. Dympna's grandfather was a Protestant who would take her to marches as a child and she reached out to people regardless or politics or creed, as evidenced by the remarkable range of mourners at her wake and funeral.
She started near her home in Drumarg, where she helped establish a community association.
Passionate about education - she always had a great love of poetry, history and culture - Dympna was instrumental in setting up the area's first pre-school provision, Dara Playgroup. Working again alongside the Sacred Heart nuns, she was also a founding member of the Spring Project in Armagh, opening the area's first affordable after-school club.
She loved being around children. Having grown up in a large family, she had got married at 16, had her first child at 17, and was a grandmother by the age of 36 and a great-granny 20 years later.
She had nine children of her own, but acted as a second mother to many others, packing them into her car for weekend trips to the beach. "May a giving hand never fail," she would say.
Her house was a community hub, with visitors always welcomed with a broad smile, a cup of tea and something from her magic pot. She had an aura about her, something magical that would make people feel at ease.
She ran from job to job to make ends meet, working in chippies, as a lollipop lady, and for the last 16 years in domiciliary care in hospitals in the Southern trust area and supported living for adults with learning disabilities.
Dympna loved this work and was particularly attuned to the needs of relatives visiting hospitals.
Her mother Jean Corrigan died in March 2016 and six weeks later her family was devastated again by Dympna's diagnosis with lung cancer.
She faced her illness with brutal honesty and courage, drawing up a bucket list of favourite places to visit to cherish her remaining time with her children.
She survived long beyond expectations and summoned all her strength to be there for her daughter Grace at her wedding in October, where she was the life and soul of the celebrations.
The family also enjoyed one last wonderful night together when she brought them to a High Kings concert after Christmas, just days before her body finally succumbed to disease.
Dympna McCague died aged 61 on January 7 and for her funeral 40 tricolours were erected around Drumarg for her final journey. Gerry Adams was among the mourners, with MP Michelle Gildernew speaking at the graveside and Mary Lou McDonald attending the wake.
She is survived by her children Thomas, Sinead, Catherine, Robert, Jamie, Marie-Clare, Martin, Grace and Sean, 15 grandchildren and large family circle.
Her month's mind Mass will be celebrated at 7.30pm on Thursday February 7 at St Malachy's Church in Armagh.
