Meet the 85-year-old shoebox lady in Limerick who is giving children hope

'When I have a box full, when I look at it, I think of a child who never had anything like this. And I hope when they open it, they get the same joy I got'

Sigi Murrihy in her workshop in Caherdavin Park, Limerick. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

Sigi Murrihy is 85 but she still remembers the doll in the pink dress. It was the last year of WW2 and seven-year-old Sigi — displaced with her mother from their home in Freiburg, Germany — was staying with relatives in the mountain village of Prevorst.

“I had left an old doll with a porcelain face, Helga, at home in Freiburg. We couldn’t bring it. We brought only the most needed bits and pieces,” says Sigi, recalling how lonely it all felt.