70 years strong for Nelie and Annie
A couple aged 92 and 101 who recently celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary have attributed their long marriage to recognising the need for compromise and a “bit of give and take”.
Nelie and Annie Bohane weren’t able to have a face-to-face celebration with their family in West Cork. Instead they received dozens of phone calls, video messages and cards.
Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the family party planned with their seven children, 24 grandchildren and 23 great grandchildren had to be postponed.
In December 2018 the whole Bohane clan attended Casey’s Hotel in Baltimore for Nelie’s 100th birthday party.
The family also hosted a party last year for his 101st birthday. It was held in their son Martin’s house which is next door to the couple’s home near Skibbereen.
Their son Cornie said that his parents are doing well amid the virus outbreak as they are cocooning with each other.
Nelie’s passions in life are fishing and farming. When asked when he did with his life over the years he joked that it involved “growing old”. He is a local historian of much renown and worked on the family farm and did carpentry and odd jobs.
He still knows how to make lobster and crab pots by hand as well as fishing nets and has a great fondness for poetry and has hundreds of verses in his head which he can recite without hesitation.
Nelie brought his beloved Annie home to Droumadoon as a young bride after they wed on April 20, 1950.
Cornie says his parents have a good quality of life and that they also have excellent home helps and receive additional care from family members.
“All of the family is doing what it can to care for them on a daily basis. It is a small return for all the love and care they gave us throughout our lives. It makes a big difference to them that they are able to live at home in their own environment,” he said.
Cornie says that they grew up in different times: “We children - Breda, Ger, Anne, Mary, Patrick and Martin – went to school, came home, did our chores and our lessons. There was no electric light. We worked by the light of an oil lamp. It was a very simple life and we appreciated it very much.
“But we never wanted for anything. We ate very well and were eating fish like lobsters, crabs and scallops while our mother reared chickens so roast chicken was regularly on the menu too as were fresh eggs. My parents used to salt fish like pollock and mackerel in big barrels. We ate the vegetables and the fruit we grew at home so our diet was the best you could get. I remember being very happy. It was an idyllic childhood. It was a simple way of living but it was just great.”
He continued: “My parents are still very much in love with each other and if one of them was to leave us, the other wouldn’t hang around for too long afterwards. They always adored each other so we were very fortunate to have grown up in a house full of love.”