Elaine Garvey

My mother always maintained you could never train a man fully.

She did her best with my father and my three brothers, Billy, Connor, and John, in fairness.

She also had superhuman powers when required to clear our family bar, John B's, of raucous revelers in the early hours of the morning.

When she was 85, an American who owned a series of nightclubs in New York was mesmerized when he witnessed this formidable force of nature fearlessly giving the road to an inebriated youngster.

He was so impressed that he immediately offered her a job as a bouncer in his Manhattan nightclub.

When she was sick of us all, she would augustly declare, I'm going home to my own people.

Home was a hand by, where 60 years earlier, she helped run the family shop with her brother, Jim.

A hand-by is six miles outside Castle Island and it was in this close-knit community she earned the fond title Mary the Shop.

She was an instant hit when she moved to La Stole in 1955 to open a grocery shop and bar in 37 William Street with her new husband John B. She was thereafter known as Mary John B.

Theirs was a glorious romance which spanned over 50 years.

As a young Irish immigrant in London, he had pined for her and wrote her achingly beautiful love poems.

Throughout their courtship and marriage, they had their own love language, which they also lavished affectionately on us.

Eilidh Vim was in our hellos and goodbyes.

Eilidh Vim was code for I love you very much.

Fast forward to the 1970s when Mam and I would go on an occasional shopping expedition to Limerick on a Monday afternoon which was Lestol's traditional half day so Mam had a break from the bar.

Dad would walk three miles out the Tarbert Road to meet and greet us on our return declaring that he was in total despair without his girls.

He loved us fiercely, generously, and unconditionally, and was somewhat overprotective.

When I wanted to go on a J1 to America, he ruled it out, saying that I was a sure candidate for abduction or kidnapping.

After my first disco in the Lestore Alarms Hotel, my brother Connor was paid and dispatched to be my personal bodyguard as I walked home with a boy mortified, with Connor walking three steps behind.

When my husband held my hand and we started dating, Dad asked, what is wrong with her hand?