Touching tribute to mother of Cosgrave building family

A Dublin matriarch in the truest sense was remembered this week when the Cosgrave family paid tribute to their mother, Patricia.

Speaking at the packed funeral at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Churchtown, Joe Cosgrave the eldest of one of Dublin’s most respected and prolific building families spoke sincerely about the impact their mother had had on their lives.

He described how, in the early 1970s, she reared five young children and managed the family farm when her husband, Jack, was struck down and nearly died from brucellosis. He recalled how a friendship with Dennis Kavanagh led to an introduction to Dennis Dargan who at the time was looking to rent a warehouse.

The "shed" they rented from the family farm, Barn Elms, subsequently became Carroll and Kinsella car dealership. Another tenant was Fintan Quinn who ran a business supplying American League Pool Tables, which led to a joint venture in a pool hall in Ranelagh, which later became Jasons, where Ken Doherty trained from the age of six.

“In 1979 we bought a small site from Patrick Gallagher in Farmleigh in Stillorgan for five houses. At that time it was impossible to get a phone on a building site, so we operated two-way radios from the site to the kitchen table in Barn Elms where my mother would order all the materials.

“That kitchen table could tell some stories if it could talk, and if Mam was here today she could verify each and every story. And that is the point, she was always there for all of us and her grandchildren. She was also here forJack, who she loved dearly ... and he often said she would make a poor man rich – not in monetary terms – but within themselves.”