Tragedy denies grandmother chance to fulfil her list of dreams

MARGARET TRAYNOR had 50 things to do before she died.

The larger than life grandmother made a decent stab at fulfilling that list of dreams before being cruelly cut down before her time.

In recent years, the 59-year-old, one of five people who died in the Wellington Quay crash on Saturday, dived off the Great Barrier Reef, visited Ayers Rock, travelled through Asia and enjoyed paragliding.

Margaret was living life to the full after working hard to bring up her four children alone. Everything was a celebration, say her children.

Photographs show a woman with her arms outstretched, embracing life, they add.

A single mother in a different era, Margaret reared three daughters, Margaret, Noelle and Caroline, and one son, Eamon, in the tough Darndale district of north Dublin.

Her children said she taught them to believe in themselves and not to accept anything less than they deserve. They proudly say her daughter Margaret was the first person from Darndale to attend Trinity.

Margaret, who lived with her mother in the tidy terraced house in Tulip Court, witnessed her death. She had just waved her off on to the No 66 to Maynooth and was standing against the wall of the Clarence Hotel when the bus came tearing along the pavement.

Fortunate not to be injured herself, she rushed to her mother’s aid. Her mother was unconscious, maybe already dead. On arrival in St Vincent’s, she was declared dead.

Her death has cut the heart and soul out of the family, which includes five grandchildren. Son Eamon, who arrived back from his home in Australia yesterday, was distraught.

“She raised the four of us by herself. She was a very strong woman who worked really hard to make sure we all had belief in ourselves. What Mum was about was that she tried to raise us to a level where we did not just accept what was around us, to look for greater things,” he said.

In her younger years, she worked in a clothes shop and made sure her children got an education.

“At 40, she just said she was going to start enjoying life. She said life begins at 40,” said Noelle. “In recent years she just enjoyed life a lot more, living for today and not tomorrow,” Eamon added.

That included travelling the globe and setting herself the 50 things to do, taken from a BBC travel programme. Her children passed the list between them yesterday and remembered their mother.