Tributes have been paid to Dorothy Tyrrell of the Arklow Tyrrell shipbuilding family, who died peacefully last week in Co Wexford.
Dorothy, whose late father naval architect Jack Tyrrell designed and built the former sail training ship Asgard II, was known in both Caherdaniel, Co Kerry, where she lived for over 30 years, and in Arklow where her family are closely involved in the RNLI lifeboat.
She had “a heart that would drive a Jumbo jet”, her brother Jimmy Tyrrell said at her funeral.
“No man would have survived what she did,”he said, recalling his sister’s many medical operations, and paying tribute to her first cousins in Ferrybank who were “her heart and soul”.
Her cousin and god-daughter Pat Tyrrell, who also spoke at her funeral in Templerainey, Arklow, said that she “lived a long and a happy life” in spite of very many hospitalisations.
“While she would never in a million years have allowed disability to define her, she did have a very serious roller skating accident when she was about six,” Pat said.
“Then followed years of orthopaedic interventions and corrective surgery, much of which was unsuccessful – all of which resulted in Dorothy spending at least four years of her childhood/early adolescence in Cappagh Hospital,” she said.
“It is hard to contemplate now the impact of this early separation from her family and community, the fear and the pain, the loneliness and the difficult reintegration into home life on discharge,”Pat said.
She had endured the “inevitable teasing and taunting …from some children at school as she learned to walk again with sticks,” she said.
Dorothy Tyrrell with her cousin and god-daugher Pat and the late RTÉ journalist Charlie Bird at an open day in Shelton prison, Arklow, Wicklow.
“All of which makes Dorothy an even more remarkable woman in the endless love that she had for life, the delight that she got from people and places, and the fun and humour that she took into every situation and interaction,” Pat said.
“After school, she trained as a beautician in Dublin – we, as children, used to marvel at the glamour and style of our cousin when she visited us in Glenthorne. She seemed so beautiful and sophisticated,” she recalled.
“Then she trained as a secretary. Patty, her friend, tells a story of one of Dorothy’s teachers looking out the window of the secretarial college when Dorothy should have been in class to see her being piggy-backed up Grafton Street by some strong and handsome man. Why is this not hard to believe?” she said.
“Where others in her situation may have opted for a disability pension, Dorothy worked for many years as a secretary in Leopardstown Hospital. Living in flats in Dublin 4, there are many stories of these times that are perhaps better saved for another day,” Pat continued.
She recalled how after her parents Jack and Aileen died in 1988, Dorothy moved to Caherdaniel Co Kerry in 1990, and it was there that she met Ted Butler and spent over 30 of the happiest years of her life.
“ Her family links with all things nautical, her immense pride in the achievements of her grandfather and her father meant that Dorothy always had a huge love of the sea,”Pat said.
“In Caherdaniel, her house [designed by architect Kevin Murphy] was in the most idyllic spot,”she said.
“The changing skies, the wild seas, the wind and light working off each other – all served to inspire in Dorothy an ever growing creativity,”she recalled.
“She painted in watercolours and acrylics and oils, she painted on silk, she made cards with pressed flowers and bog cotton, she captured images on her camera and she made stained glass and ceramics,”Pat said.
“ And, among all of this, she found time to play bridge, deliver meals on wheels and socialise…”
“She made friends across the whole community. Anyone reading the tributes to Dorothy on RIP.ie will see how much she was loved in the Kingdom,”she said.
In 2020 Dorothy moved closer to her extended family to gain additional support, settling in Middletown Village near Courtown, Co Wexford.
“While the scenery and the wildness of the Iveragh Peninsula cannot be replicated, here she did find new friendships and community and she adapted to the changes in her usual positive way,” Pat said.
Pat described how she and her sisters Claire and Sheila had “endless fun with her during these last years”.
Pat expressed the hope that two of the latest arrivals into the Tyrrell family - Oona, Jimmy’s granddaughter, and Orla, Pat’s granddaughter - “have both been imbued with Dorothy’s spirit of feistiness and fun and friendship”.
The Late Dorothy Tyrrell
Dorothy, who was extremely proud of her family’s maritime connections, had attended the naming ceremony of Arklow RNLI’s €3.1m new all–weather Shannon class lifeboat last June with members of her family. Among the many expressions of sympathy on rip.ie is one from Arklow RNLI.
Dorothy Tyrrell is survived by her brothers Jimmy and John and extended family, and was pre-deceased by her brother Michael.
