MANY a glass has been raised in the past week to perhaps the longest-serving bar lady in the world - Margaret (Peg) Carmody in Hospital. Peg passed away last week aged 95. She pulled her last pint in Carmody’s bar earlier this year.
She took over the running of the pub in November 1956 when it passed down from the parents of her late husband Joe (pictured above on their wedding day). Peg spent an incredible 68 years being the bar. One of her seven children, Helen, said it was her mum’s wish that her family and regulars would have a farewell in the pub “She rested in the bar until her wake.
Mom returned home to the bar after the wake and spent the night with family before her final journey. We did not want her to be on her own. “When the coffin was brought back from the funeral home we laid her out in the pub and some of her regular clients joined us.
Mom had always wanted a send-off with free pints to celebrate her great life,” said Helen, who described her mother as a “remarkable woman”. After all, Peg had taught Helen and her six siblings - Pat, Tommie, Joe, Margaret, Geraldine, and Catherine, and her grandchildren, how to pull the perfect pint. She even taught Micheal Martin how to pull the perfect pint of Guinness a number of years ago.
The Tanaiste called in to see Peg during the recent mayoral election campaign such was the effect she had on him. Helen said Peg passed away peacefully in the family home which is what she wanted. She is now reunited with her.