Kathleen, 113, set to make Irish history

A 113 year-old Irish woman, currently living in New York, is on course to become the oldest person in Irish history in just over a month.

Clare-native Kathleen Hayes Rollins Snavely was born in Feakle in 1902. She emigrated to Syracuse in 1921. The longest-living person ever born in Ireland was Annie Scott, who was born on March 15, 1883. Annie died in 1996, aged 113 years and 37 days. Kathleen will make history again in 36 days when she surpasses that age.

Today, Kathleen is “hard of hearing but clear of mind”, and has lived an extraordinary life.

She has been a resident of The Centers at St Camillus in Syracuse, New York, for a short number of years.

Last year, her adopted home of Syracuse declared March 17 Kathleen Snavely Day, to honour the popular resident.

Back in Clare, Peggy Hayes, the widow of one of Kathleen’s cousins, says she was told that Kathleen “left young and did well, and that she was from a long-living family”.

She was born on February 16, 1902, to farmer and publican Patrick Hayes and his wife Ellen. Kathleen worked as a business apprentice in Ireland, before boarding a ship in 1921 and sailing from Cobh to Ellis Island aged 19, and with just $25 (€22) in her pocket. She worked at a state school for people with developmental disabilities and then found employment at EW Edwards Department Store.

She later set up a shop with her first husband, Roxie E Rollins.

Roxie died in 1968. In December, 2000, she honoured his memory by making a gift of $1m to the Syracuse University School of Management.

“I can’t think of anything that would please him more than supporting a cause that would help other ambitious young people like us.”

Two years after Roxie’s death, 68-year-old Kathleen married her second husband, Jesse Clark Snavely, Jr.