{"id":4767,"date":"2021-08-09T13:30:29","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T13:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kildare.ie\/ehistory\/?p=4767"},"modified":"2025-10-29T17:10:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:10:28","slug":"vera-a-life-well-lived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/vera-a-life-well-lived\/","title":{"rendered":"Death of Vera (McCormack) Farrell, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Vera. A life well lived <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Vera (McCormack) Farrell died on 18 April 2018 at her home in Oughterard, Straffan, Co. Kildare. She was ninety-three. On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the liner <em>Lusitania<\/em> Vera was then ninety and one of only two living direct descendants of a survivor of that fateful event. Vera played a part in the commemoration of the anniversary, contributing to a TV programme, newspaper reports, several radio interviews and an event organised by the Co. Kildare Decade of Commemorations held in Naas Community Library. She was immensely proud to help tell her father Tom McCormack\u2019s story and how he survived the tragic sinking. \u2018I think he was just a very, very brave man,\u2019 Vera said. Vera also joked about \u2018her few hours of fame\u2019 and was delighted to invite neighbours and friends in to see \u2018her movie\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Vera\u2019s son, Fintan Farrell, has written a small book telling Vera\u2019s story from her birth in 1924 and her early years in Killina, Co. Kildare, her move to Oughterard, \u00a0to her death in 2018. He paints a vivid picture of early nineteenth century Ireland and of a woman with a strong vibrant, self-determined character.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4768\" src=\"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/vera-214x300.jpg\" alt=\"Book cover of Vera A Life Well Lived\" width=\"214\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/vera-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/vera.jpg 711w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The cover image is of the Bog of Allen (which Vera loved) by Dearbhla McArdle and the book contains many photographs and an illustration of Vera&#8217;s garden. <em>Vera. A life well lived <\/em>is available from Skew Bridge Publishers, Kildare.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vera. A life well lived Vera (McCormack) Farrell died on 18 April 2018 at her home in Oughterard, Straffan, Co. Kildare. She was ninety-three. On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the liner Lusitania Vera was then ninety and one of only two living direct descendants of a survivor of that fateful event. Vera [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,28,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decade-of-centenaries","category-genealogical-resources","category-people"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/vera.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/vera.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Kildare Local Studies","author_link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/author\/localstudies\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4767"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8080,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4767\/revisions\/8080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}