Maura Phillips: Maura Constance Phillips, who has died aged 88, was born in the eventful year of 1916, and her life would be intertwined with the events of Easter of that year.
She was born 103 days after her father, Michael Mallin, was executed. Chief of staff of the Irish Citizen Army and commander of the St Stephen's Green Garrison, he was shot on May 8th, 1916, by a British military firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol for his part in the Rising.
Maura was the fifth child born to Michael and Agnes Mallin (née Hickey) - her siblings were Séamus (b.1904), Seán (b.1906), Úna (b.1908) and Joseph (b.1914). Of the widows of the 1916 leaders, Agnes Mallin had the greatest burden: five children under the age of 13, and the family has always recalled how, at five months pregnant, she had been deeply shocked by the news of her husband's execution.
When Maura was born in the Coombe in Dublin on August 19th, 1916, there were protests outside the hospital. In some circles there was still opposition to those who had taken part in the Rising.
Her godmother would be Constance Markievicz, who had been second-in-command in the College of Surgeons, and who asked to take on the role (she converted to Catholicism the following year.)
Lillie Connolly, widow of James Connolly, acted as proxy for the countess, who was still imprisoned after the Rising. Maura's christening gift was a miraculous medal.
William Partridge was her godfather; he had served in the College of Surgeons with her father and died shortly after imprisonment for his part in the Rising.
To support her family Agnes, who had been a nurse, returned to work as a night nurse in the South Dublin Union (now St James's Hospital), and later also worked as a school attendance officer. However, the work undermined her health.
Fundraising assisted the family. At Christmas 1916 a picture of the families of those killed in 1916 was published in the Catholic Bulletin, and this raised funds in America and elsewhere for the education and support of the widows and their dependants. Money was also provided for the family from the White Cross (a non-political organisation set up during the War of Independence to assist the families of activists) and also from the labour movement.
It was not until the mid-1920s that the Irish Free State government under WT Cosgrave provided an allowance of 30 shillings for the family. Maura told how this was a reduced sum as Michael Mallin had not signed the Proclamation.
Unlike her siblings Maura did not attend boarding school and was educated at home in her early years. Margaret Pearse came once a week to teach her, and she went to live with the patriot's mother in St Enda's when her mother was hospitalised with TB of the spine.
In 1924 Surgeon Stokes performed an operation taking a bone from Agnes Mallin's leg and placed it in the spine, which meant that she had bed rest for a year following the operation and was unable to look after Maura. The day that Maura made her first holy communion in St Enda's, surrounded by all the boys, as she fondly recalled, was the first day that her mother was allowed out of bed in almost a year.
It was only a short-lived recovery. Five years later the TB returned, and Agnes Mallin was hospitalised again. Maura travelled every second day to the hospital in Dún Laoghaire until it became clear that Agnes Mallin was dying. Then it was arranged that she would be cared for at home by her teenage daughter, Maura, and others.
Her sister, Úna, had joined the Loreto order in 1925 and went to a convent in Spain, where she spent the rest of her life. In this she fulfilled the wishes of their father, who had written in his last letter: "Úna my little one be a nun, Joseph my little man be a priest if you can . . ."
Joe did become a Jesuit. His brother Seán was also a Jesuit priest. The eldest, Séamus, having fought in the Civil War on the republican side, left Ireland and went to Venezuela in the late 1920s.
Agnes Mallin died when Maura was just 14 years old. After her mother's death Maura went as a boarder to the Loreto Convent in Bray and, on completing her schooling, lived in Spain. She spent several years in Barcelona and became fluent in Spanish. On her return she worked as a teacher of English with the Dublin Spanish Society and, until her death, had a wide circle of friends in Spain and South America.
In 1944 Maura married a musician, Robert (Bob) Phillips, following a chance meeting in a Cork music shop. He was a classical guitarist but made his living as a pianist. The couple lived in Cork where their first child, David, was born in 1946. They moved to Limerick where their second child, Michael, was born in 1949.
They returned to Dublin and in 1961 settled in the newly-established suburb of Terenure. But six years later her husband had a motorcycle accident, which left him brain-damaged. After a long period of hospitalisation, Maura nursed him at home and was his carer for the remaining years of his life. He died in 1986.
Ill health marred her later years and meant that she, too, was hospitalised for the final two years of her life. She died in the Our Lady's Hospice in Harold's Cross on April 20th, 2005. She is survived by her sons, David and Michael, and by her brother Fr Joe Mallin SJ.
Maura Phillips: born August 19th, 1916; died April 20th, 2005