Obituary: Renee Kelly remembered a year after her death
The late Renee Kelly.
A private mass took place at St Patrick’s Residential care home on Wednesday, November 19, for the first anniversary of the death of Renee Kelly (nee Whelan).
Renee was born in 1940, christened and married in the Cathedral and was carried from the same altar to “beneath the lights of home” - a song she hunted down in her last days, one year ago this week.
Around the corner from her beloved High St - a singing, card-playing sociable home with a widowed Aggie at the helm from the 50’s, a Rat Pack of singing brothers Louie, Seanie, Bobby, Frankie, and her beloved sister Moyra (all deceased now), number 7 was an open house for family, friends and neighbours.
This city of music was her stomping ground - Michael Street, O'Connell Street, The Quay. She reminisced endlessly about The Savoy, the Col, the Olympia, Ballybricken carnival - the hurdy gurdys. Johnny Alywards, The Twins, Jordan’s and running down Flaggy Lane to the Theatre Royal to keep the seat warm for Aggie.
The song she sang on most occasions:
Renee served her time as confectioner at The Green Bank. Her handsome Dan came across the bridge from Ferrybank. High Street was home to the newlyweds before they left the town for Lisduggan in 1968.
Renee blessed with a make-and-do mindset did much with what she had, she put her baking skills and Kenwood Chef to good use - making a shop on the front step for after mass Sunday trade - cream horns and butterfly buns. Her three girls, Caroline, Sue and Gilly, her finger-licking shopkeepers.
Renee was a catalyst - a connector - she simply loved people. She loved ordinary everyday chat - excelling in “the art of conversation” with people’s faces and places in pin-sharp detail. Our friends became her friends - you know who you are.
Her prized book of phone numbers and the telephone box at the top of Paddy Browne's Road gave way to a mobile in her pocket - a lifeline - a daily delight to sit and chat to anyone who would answer - she did the rounds, you know who you are.
Always connecting people - Renee’s namesake, Catherine (Kitty) Whelan, her father Michael's only sister, who sailed to America alone aged six in 1909, with an address stitched into her coat, never to return.
Renee never forgot her.
Years later, Renee’s detective skills, with a little help, tracked down that little girl’s descendants, and long-lost cousins came from Chicago to walk the lanes of Ballybricken with her.
Her last summer 2024 - our Australian cousins came to visit Renee, tour guide supreme. She took them to their homestead and family graves on a rainy day to remember and hold dear the North name.
As she passed by Stokestown, New Ross - laughing like a 10-year-old - she recalled how, as kids, they'd wade into the river, cover themselves in mud to lie out in the hot sun and let it bake on to their city skin.
Renee was the keeper of names, faces, places on fading photos. She kept her stories carefully, wrapped individually like warm farm eggs from Joanie Wall's dairy shop in Arundel Square.
Her grandchildren brought her endless joy. She took daily interest in all 11 of you - Oisín, Paddy, Clare, Maia, Louie, Seán, Stella, Danny, Rory, Rowan and Charlie - how she loved you all.
Matches, gigs, grads, heartbreaks or hooplas - she was ever present.
And so the circle continues - your friends are our friends.
