Remembering Mairead Kearney Shea

The Irish Cultural Center of Western New England is saddened to learn of the passing of Mairead Kearney Shea, who was the last living woman from the Great Blasket Island in County Kerry, Ireland. 

Born in December 1922, Kearney Shea was the youngest of seven children of Peats Tom and Nellie Shea Kearney. She came to Springfield in the 1940s and worked as a seamstress at the former Berkshire Maid, owned by the Joseph family. She married Springfield firefighter Patrick Shea in 1960, and together they had four children – Patrick, John, Thomas, and Theresa – and seven grandchildren.

ICC President Sean Cahillane is the nephew of Kearney Shea. “My Aunt Mairead is the last of the original Blasket Island clan. My aunt and godmother, she was a woman of class and all good things. She will be greatly missed here but will be with her many Island family members in the next world. Farewell to a great lady.”

In 2023, Irish Deputy Prime Minister (Tánaiste) Micheál Martin took time out on his visit to Western Massachusetts to honor Kearney Shea in a celebration of the centennial of her life at the ICC, along with Congressman Richard Neal and U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Claire Cronin.

Surrounded by her loving and large family at the celebration, she was the beneficiary of many exemplary words and a plaque with photographs. The framed piece also included a stone from the Great Blasket Island.

The ICC offers sincere condolences to her family and friends here in western Massachusetts and Ireland.