When Anne Mullen was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 47, she didn’t consider it a time to feel sorry for herself.
Quite the opposite – Anne was already so embedded in the community that her immediate instinct was to help others.
Together with her mother, Lily McCaul, they set about setting up a Parkinson’s support group in their home town of Newry.
Lily passed away in 2008, but Anne kept the group going until a few years ago, when ill health curtailed her involvement.
Anne reached out to find others who were also suffering and assure them they were not alone.
She would talk to people long into the night on the phone or in person, to reassure, support or help them come to terms with their diagnosis, something that wasn’t there when she received hers.
When there were any fundraising events, their home would be packed with leaflets and posters and anything else to get the word out and encourage people to dig deep.
Anne was born in Newry in 1951 and, after marrying Raymond, they settled in Mount Pleasant, in the Church Street area of the town.
Back then, the area was a hive of community activity and Anne and Raymond were at the heart of it. From street barbecues and discos to the much-loved Earwig Festival, Anne got great joy from being part of a vibrant local community.
She worked in the civil service in Belfast but it was her involvement in her local community which she will be most remembered for.
For visitors to the St Vincent de Paul shop in Newry, she was a familiar face for the best part of 30 years.
Following the mantra of ‘where there’s muck, there’s brass’, Anne had an eye for the valuable among the mundane and, as well as sifting through the many donations to SVP, she was a regular visitor to car boot sales and had a talent for sporting antiques and forgotten treasures.
Working in the shop gave her the opportunity to uncover discarded gems, and her sharp knowledge of what her extended family were up to at any given time meant many things were held over for sons and daughters as well as nieces and nephews.
A model of a human skull still takes pride of place in her nephew’s medical surgery to this day.
Anne took great pride in her sons, Darren and Neil, who respectively managed and played for Newry City Football Club, as well the achievements of all her children and wider family circle.
Those who met Anne in a social setting and at various fundraising events would have remarked on how glamorous she was always turned out, and she had a canny knack of getting others roped into good causes. Family and community were so important and she will have inspired others to keep those flames burning.
It was her work with Parkinson’s which will have brought Anne to wider attention and, as her condition worsened and she began to suffer from dementia, her daughter Rachel briefly took over the group.
Rachel will now be known to millions now as the winner of the BBC TV show The Traitors and as family gather this weekend to celebrate her success and remember Anne, contributions for her Parkinson’s group will form a part of that celebration,
Anne passed away on January 27. She is survived by her children Darren, Shane, Joanne, Rachel and Neil.
Paul McConville