101-year-old trailblazer Una ‘has a great spirit of generosity’

A FEW weeks after Una McChrystal turned 101-years-young, she called Áras an Uachtaráin to see where her commemorative coin and presidential letter was. It arrived last Wednesday.

That is the sort of person Una is. The resident in Tymon North Community Nursing Unit is chatty and an outright trailblazer, carving her own path and working for everything to her name.

Born in Dublin to a Kerry mother and Offaly father, Una grew up in Kilmainham before moving to Rialto, and Inchicore as a child.

A keen learner, Una went to Goldenbridge school and was picked among eight students in her school to sit the pilot Leaving Certificate at the time.

A Dublin camogie panellist, journalism was once a potential career path for Una and she attended Rathmines College of Commerce in pursuit of it for a period before dropping out.

One day on the bus out to Ringsend to go to work in Irish Products, Una’s attention was drawn to the bus driver, Michael McChrystal.

“Michael was from Derry, and he moved to Dublin, where he became a bus driver,” their daughter Iris tells The Echo.

“Una met him on the bus on her way to work and they started going with each other.

“They were married, lived in a flat on South Circular Road and had myself and my younger brother John. But they split up and he was away working in England.”

It was 1951 and Una was separated with two children, needing to put a roof over their head. That’s when they moved to Windmill Road in Crumlin, buying the house with her father and brother.

However, when she attempted to go back to work, there was a spanner in the works.

Una McChrystal on her 101st birthday

“When my mam went to go back to work, she couldn’t because she was married. That’s the way it was back then.

“All the money was going to my dad, he was claiming the tax free allowance as a married man even though they were separated.

“But my mam said, ‘not a hope’, and she wrote to the State to tell them the situation, and she was one of the first women to get the single person tax free allowance in that way.”

Una went back to work when John turned seven, working in Irish Pharmaceuticals for 12-years before spending 16-years in Odearest Mattresses up until her retirement in 1986.

It was a great time in Una’s life.

“The best decade is, [in my] opinion, the one when [my] two children Iris and John got married and then went on to produce eight wonderful grandchildren Owen, Gillian, Elaine, Roisin, Sarah, Deirdre, Paul and Ann,” Una tells The Echo.

Not one to sit around after retiring, Una was a founder member of Crumlin and District Active Retirement Association and served as its most recent honorary president.

For a short period of time, Una lived with Iris in her family home in Kilbride before moving into Tymon North Care Centre a few months ago.

Una is a bit of an Irish history aficionado, having engrossed herself in a plethora of books on the topic over the years.

“Reading is what I keep busy with, and I will get through 1-2 books a week,” Una said.

“I love Irish political and history books.”

One of the books Una was going to read recently was about Irish revolutionary and suffragette, Maud Gonne, and it sparked a conversation with Iris.

“She asked me to get her a book about Maud Gonne, and then my mam said to me ‘sure I met her’,” Iris recalls.

“‘I was in town when I was 14 and I saw this lady walking across the road and she came into some difficulty getting across. So, I helped her across’ she said.

“The woman turned to her and asks ‘do you know who I am?’, and my mam said to her ‘of course, you’re madame Gonne, I was reading about you in my history book in school’.

“Maud Gonne sort of laughed and said ‘I haven’t been called madame Gonne in a long time’.”

Una’s determination and enterprising nature was not lost on Iris, and John, who sadly passed away in August, when they were growing up.

“She is inspirational beyond belief,” Iris explains.

“She always allowed everyone to live their best lives and was generous, always helping people and giving them her time.

“She has a great spirit of generosity.”