Mary Coughlan
speaker
275 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 20 Jun
Mary Coughlan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
I left home two weeks after the leave and cert, but I did the leave and cert.
But there wasn't as much pressure then.
I mean, there was a lot of people I know left after the junior and went off to the tech and became like plumbers and carpenters and mechanics and loads of other things.
So I did the leave and cert mostly because I didn't want to work.
because my father had put the foot down and said, if you're going to leave school, you have to get a job.
Okay.
So I stayed on to do the leave cert.
But then I left home afterwards and started my adventures in life, really.
You emigrated straight after leaving, did you?
Down to Limerick.
I went to Limerick first and I met a gang of people down there and we went off to London.
And yeah, by the time I was 18, so I was 17 in May, did my Leaving Cert in June and I was gone and I was working at various jobs.
But my big job was street sweeping in the borough of Ealing and Acton.
The first ever woman street sweeper in London.
Yes, yes.
And all my children, well, three of them finished college, two of them left.
One of them became, he's a Michelin chef, you know, has had amazing experiences.
My youngest son and Clare, I knew she didn't want to go to school.
She didn't go to school.
I'd leave her at school and she'd get the bus up to Eddyscurry and look at horses for the day.
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