Great-grandmother celebrates turning 105 at Manchester care home

  • Kathleen has been speaking to ITV Granada Reports journalist Emma Sweeney about her life.

A great-grandmother who is marking her 105th birthday has shared the secret to a long life.

Kathleen Molloy, who is originally from County Galway in Ireland but now lives in Manchester, says: "Most of the time I was happy, lots of the times I wasn’t happy - but it had no effect, I just carried on.”

She marked the special day with live music, surrounded by friends and family at St Joseph’s care home in Longsight.

Sister Marie Thérèse said Kathleen had been “looking forward to the day for a good while.”

She added that staff and volunteers had been “keeping her going by saying you have to keep well for your birthday.”

Sister Marie Thérèse said there had been great excitement ahead of the big day.

Kathleen - a horse racing enthusiast - was born in Aughris Bec, a gaeltacht area on the west coast of Ireland in 1919. 

After her father died in 1942, she was recruited to do “war work” in Birmingham.

“England seemed to be the only horizon for her for the situation they were in”, Kathleen’s daughter, Una explained.

“She had to go and there was no choice in it really.”

Kathleen met her husband Tommy Credit: Family handout

But Kathleen did find happiness in the UK when she met her husband Tommy who had also emigrated from the same part of Ireland.

“We were all at mass and when we came outside, we were talking to the boys who had only just come over”, she said. 

“Tommy said whichever of the girls are from Galway, that’s my girl. And I said, ‘that’s me.”’

Up until she was 102, Kathleen had been living independently in her own home, but in 2023 she moved to St Joseph's in Manchester, a care home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor.  

  • Kevin Molloy praised his mother's determination

Kathleen’s son Kevin says it is his mother’s determination that has helped her to live such a long life, adding: “Whenever there’s something wrong, she’s always sought medical help.

“She’s always been up for the operation, or procedure, or whatever. And what it expresses is, she wants to live.”

With grand old age comes pearls of wisdom as Kathleen warns; “it’s a good life but there are downfalls and you have to watch your company.”

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