Born: June 25th, 1969
Died: January 9th, 2026
Edith Geraghty (56) hated spiders but otherwise led something of a charmed life – until it wasn’t. She loved where she lived on the Erris peninsula in Co Mayo, “a beautiful village right on the coast”, where her “most prized possession”, she said, was her husband, Seamus. Indeed, had money been no object, she would have spent “even more time” with Seamus. “We are only married for 28 years so we are not over each other yet,” she said in 2018.
In 2024 she spoke of how she had “kept all the letters Seamus sent over the years and, after we got married, I was wrapping them in ribbon and putting them in a pretty box. He came in, saw that I was crying and asked: ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’ I said: ‘Well, I’m a married woman now so I’ll never get another love letter.’ That gave him an idea. We got married on the 17th of September [1990] and on the 17th of every month, for 30 years, he sent me a love letter.”
Seamus Geraghty was diagnosed with bowel cancer in January 2019 and died a year later. On December 17th, 2019, the month before his death, Edith recalled how, although “very, very ill, he asked the nurse for a piece of paper. She tore a piece out of her notebook and he wrote me my final love letter. I have it folded and I carry it with me in my mobile phone. That is the kind of man I was married to. It was a privilege to be his wife.”
Seamus and she “were in love every day of our lives. And in the period that he was dying, we actually fell more in love than ever. We were quite astonished. We would talk about it with wonder that we could actually love each other more,” she said.
READ MORE
“It was absolutely heartbreaking to lose my life, my heart, my soul. I was holding him in my arms when he died. That was the worst moment of my life. Nothing that ever happens to me in life will ever be as bad as that moment.”
From the moment her husband realised he was dying “all he did was encourage me to live. He wanted me to live. He wanted me to shine. I got very cross with him. I said, ‘How am I supposed to do that without you?’ But he was determined that I had a purpose,” she said.
Both of them had been involved with the No Name Club youth organisation for 25 years by then. “We were living in Belmullet and teenagers we knew were proclaiming that there was nothing for them to do. I had some time on my hands, so I went and looked at various youth groups around the country. What I liked about No Name Club was the insistence that this organisation was about young people, for young people and run by young people,” she said.
They established the Erris No Name Club. “A few years later, I started working for the organisation and it was my privilege to travel around and meet all our other volunteers. That was immensely satisfying.”
In 2020, shortly after her husband’s death, she was also appointed to the Press Council of Ireland. By then she had more than 30 years’ experience working in the voluntary and community sector, serving on the Joint Policing Committee, the Public Participation Committee and the Foster Care Committee for Mayo, as well as being a trustee and chair of Erris No Name Club.
Edith was formidable in the best possible way, endlessly passionate, and unwaveringly committed to the power of creativity and community
— Linenhall arts centre, Castlebar
She was also independent chair for the Mayo County Childcare Committee, having been a director of the Western Region Drugs Task Force and national development officer for the No Name Club. She was coordinator of the Mayo Traveller Support Group, a Peace Commissioner, and was on the Advisory Committee on Small Public Service Vehicles. Her international work included work on the Erasmus+ programme and the US-based Kettering Foundation, and she was an international juror for the Innovation in Politics Award.
It was a busy life. “Usually up at 6am and I head to the swimming pool at the Éalú Leisure Centre at the Broadhaven Bay Hotel and I swim for about an hour and a half. I am home for breakfast and at my desk for 9am.” She loved “getting up early, it’s how my body clock works and I find it a very productive part of my day.”
Then, “when you live in Belmullet, you automatically have to tackle an hour and a half driving in every journey, so you are just used to it.” Erris was “such a beautiful place to live” that it was worth “the extra hour and a half for every journey”.
She was also a board member of the Linenhall arts centre in Castlebar. On her death, the centre remembered a woman who was “formidable in the best possible way, endlessly passionate, and unwaveringly committed to the power of creativity and community. Her belief in what the arts can do was infectious, and her passion and energy has helped shape who we are today.”
She was, the arts centre tribute continued, “a tireless advocate for disability, access, and inclusion across our local community, always leading with intelligence, compassion, and action”.
It added: “Edith has always been described as a great friend: generous with her time, sharp with her insight and full of life. We will miss her fierce advocacy and her steady encouragement more than words can say. We are profoundly grateful for our time working with Edith.”
A tribute from Press Ombudsman Susan McKay spoke of her commitment, and how she even took part in Press Council meetings from her hospital bed. When attending meetings in person, she “cut quite a dash in her always elegant clothes, her hats and her lilac motorised wheelchair”.
Online, one tribute recalled “a lovely and wise lady” who "gave so much to communities in Castlebar and Belmullet”; another read “what a presence she was, the heartiest laugh and such a vibrant energy, always a good word to say about everyone and a kind heart”.
In 2022 Edith Geraghty was diagnosed with the rare condition pyoderma gangrenosum, believed to involve immune system dysfunction. She was seriously ill and spent 53 weeks in hospital.
As she said in September 2024, “I became very, very ill. I tore a tiny stomach muscle and it was bleeding internally but nobody realised that was happening. I put the pain down to grief – people don’t realise there is a physical component to grief as well as the mental stress.”
She said she “didn’t expect to come through the first surgery and, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t that bothered. The way I looked at it, if I died I was going to see Seamus again, so there wasn’t anything to be afraid of.”
Her treatment was successful. Grateful to the surgeon and staff at Mayo University Hospital, she “made a very clear decision to be positive”. She did so “because happiness is a choice” and she had begun “to think Seamus might have been right. Maybe I still have something to contribute, and that is why I am still here. If I have any advice, it’s that you only have one life. Live it.”
Sixteen months later she died at the Mayo hospice in Castlebar.
