Maeve Hillery

Mary Beatrice Finnegan was born on 14 August 1924[1] in Sheffield, Yorkshire. Her father was a builder from Galway, and her mother was half-Irish. Hillery would holiday in Ireland as a child, and, during World War II, she attended a boarding school in Galway for a year. She entered University College Galway (UCG), and qualified as a doctor. She then attended University College Dublin (UCD), where she studied to become an anaesthetist.[2] It was here that she met her future husband, Patrick Hillery, who was also studying medicine.[3][4] She worked in Jervis Street Hospital, St James' Hospital, and in Sheffield.[5] The couple married on 27 October 1955.[1] The Hillerys practised medicine together in Milltown Malbay while her husband was a TD.[2] Together they had a son, John, and an adopted daughter, Vivienne. Vivienne died in 1987[1] from leukemia.[2]

Hillery died in Dublin, on 10 January 2015.[6] She was buried in St Fintan's Cemetery, Sutton.[3]

Hillery's husband served in a number of political roles, including foreign minister and European Commissioner. After the completion of his term as a European Commissioner in 1976, he contemplated leaving politics and returning to medicine. Instead, Hillery was asked to become the sixth President of Ireland.[7] The woollen cloak she worn to her husband's inauguration as president is now held in the collections of the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks.[8][9] She used a number of Irish designers during her 13 years in Áras an Uachtaráin, highlighting Irish design and materials.[2][10]

During the few rare interviews Hillery gave she spoke about the enormous upkeep and maintenance the presidential residence required, its unsuitability as a family home, and undertook the restoration of parts of the house. Due to her husband's career, Hillery did give up practising medicine, but she undertook a course in public health at University of Louvain, and a diploma in child care.[2][5] She maintained a particular interest in children's mental health, was part of a research committee at St Michael's House, and worked with Dr Victoria Coffey on her study of Down Syndrome. She also learnt Irish Sign Language.[5]

Hillery served as the patron and president of a number of charities and voluntary groups including the Ana Liffey Drug Project,[11] Care Alliance Ireland,[12] Femscan,[13] the National Association for the Mentally Handicapped, and the Association for Deaf Children.[5] She was among a number of prominent Irish women who contributed recipes to a book, Welcome To Our Kitchen, which was produced by Femscan to raise money towards Ireland's first mobile breast cancer screening unit.[14]