“I won’t be here forever and these people cannot be left without,” said Dubliner Margaret Brown, who has been providing Christmas dinners to those in need and the homeless for almost four decades.
Mrs Brown, from Sandycove in south Co Dublin, has been organising the festive feast since 1986 after she and her late mother saw people in a scout hall eating lumpy soup and cold meat while huddled around a gas-fired heater.
“Running out of turkey 39 years ago when I first started cooking dinners with my mother, I never thought I would be doing this all these years later,” she said.
“But thankfully I can still do this; for how much longer I do not know.”
Mrs Brown, who is in her 80s, originally organised her annual Christmas dinners in Blackrock Rugby Club in south Dublin.
In the past, high-profile names such as rock band U2 have surprised guests at the annual Christmas dinner when people gathered at the rugby club.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything and forced Mrs Brown and scores of volunteers to turn to making takeout meals instead.
Now the new tradition of delivering the five-course feast of a full Christmas dinner, with pudding and mince pies, is here to stay.
“I won’t be here forever, but I’ll keep making the dinners with the help of so many wonderful volunteers thanks to donations we receive from food producers,” said Mrs Brown.
Margaret Brown holds a copy of The Irish Times from December 20th, 1990, in which she featured in an article by Kate Holmquist and photograph by Paddy Whelan. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
The numbers she is feeding have surpassed 200, which is normally the cut-off number she and her team can cook for.
“The numbers we could provide for filled our list way in advance of the cut-off date,” she said.
“There are so many new people, many of whom are younger, not just older individuals who are lonely and homeless, which is shocking.”
The 39 years she has been feeding people has passed “in the blink of an eye” and the needs of people have changed in that time.
“There have been a lot of changes in social needs over those years and food provisions have to meet those demands,” she said.
The team of volunteers will be cooking for 60 people living in Bethany House for the homeless in Dún Laoghaire. There will also be a special meal for Travellers living in Carrickmines who lost several family members in a blaze 10 years ago.
“It takes a lot of preparation in the lead-up to Christmas Day, receiving donations, streamlining of cooking times, delivering the food to people, or them calling to the rugby club at specific times and ensuring no one is forgotten,” said Mrs Brown.
Her giving has not just been at Christmas. In 2019 she helped repatriate the remains of an Irishman, Joseph Tuohy from Toomevara, Co Tipperary, as he had no known relatives still alive, and helped prepare a funeral for him.
Mr Tuohy, who died in his late 80s, was separated from his mother at age five and spent his childhood in orphanages and St Joseph’s Industrial School in Clonmel. He emigrated to London in his late teens and never returned to Ireland, losing contact with his family. He experienced periods of homelessness and illness in London.
Mrs Brown was contacted about his case in her capacity as a volunteer for the Friends of the Forgotten Irish Emigrants, who launched an appeal to Mr Tuohy’s relatives and for people to attend his funeral. His ashes were subsequently laid in consecrated ground in Tipperary.
“I didn’t set out for my life to be like this, or to become known for trying to help others, but life can be so difficult for so many and if I can help someone I will,” said Mrs Brown.