‘I do it to cheer people up’: the 92-year-old who has started writing songs

This year has been difficult for many, but 92-year-old Rose Deegan is trying to put a smile on people's faces with her new hobby of songwriting.

Ms Deegan, who was the secretary of Trinity College's Department of Genetics for 30 years, recently penned a Christmas song in which she asks Santa to "make us all feel better" after a challenging year.

“I do it just to cheer people up. I just send them to my own groups. They can send it onto others.

“ I don’t mind people laughing at me, or if they want to smile, it’s fine. I just thought that it was coming up to Christmas and I wanted to do something,” she says.

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“When this started, and everybody was down, I thought I might write a song. And I just did. That one was called coronavirus. I’ve written about three or four. I don’t sit down and do it, but it just comes to me.”

A neighbour videos her singing the songs so she can email it to her closest friends. In the video, Ms Deegan is seen clutching a polar bear teddy, which she says she won in a raffle.

“He is now going to be my virtual hugger and I’m going to call him Daniel,” she explains of the polar bear.

“So every time I want to give somebody a hug, then poor Daniel will get the hug. I’m sure his fur is almost rubbed away by now. He’s very cuddly.”

Ms Deegan, who moved to Ireland from Scotland in the late 1950s, lives alone in a house in Finglas, though she says her neighbours have really come together to help her this year.

"I have a son and a daughter; my son lives in Clonmel and my daughter lives in England. My husband died many years ago. I have no family, nobody in Dublin at all. My neighbours are young, with families, and they're very good for shopping for me. I'm very lucky."

“Before, it used to be that we might talk to them and their kids; I love kids. They’d come down to the road and ask me how I was. But when this started, my next door neighbour said I was going to be her coronavirus project and she was going to look after me. And she does, she really does.”

She adds: “It has just amazed me that these young people, who have such busy lives, always have time for me.”

While she admits the year was lonely at times, she was grateful to have access to the internet.

“I’ve got an iPad so my daughter Facetimes me three times a day and I have Scottish niece who will Facetime me every other day. I get a lot of Facetimes. I’m ok, I don’t like it, but I’m ok.”