{"id":410933,"date":"2026-04-22T01:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T01:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/410933\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T01:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T01:07:13","slug":"offaly-man-who-celebrated-105th-birthday-is-irelands-oldest-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/410933\/","title":{"rendered":"Offaly man who celebrated 105th birthday is Ireland\u2019s oldest man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>IRELAND&#8217;S oldest man, Paddy Claffey who resides on the border between Ferbane and Cloghan, celebrated his 105th birthday on Friday last in his home in Noggus with his family. relatives, neighbours and friends who dropped in throughout the day to wish him well. <br \/>Paddy was born in Noggusboy, Ferbane, on April 17th, 1921, three months before the end of Ireland\u2019s War of Independence. His parents were Sarah (Flaherty) of Gallen and Kieran Claffey, Noggus. Paddy was the youngest of ten children. He had six sisters \u2013 Maryann, Maggie, Kit, Ellen, Jane and Sarah \u2013 and three brothers \u2013 Ned, Kieran, who died a young man, and Johnny who died at birth.<br \/>Although a little under the weather last Friday and disappointed that he picked up a nasty chest infection, Paddy is in good health usually. His mind is 100 per cent although his hearing is not great. He is lucky that he has a good appetite and a wonderful family, who tend to his every need.<br \/>He\u2019s still going strong though and looking forward to the fine weather when he can get back out driving about on the quad, helping with making the hay and saving the turf.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.offalyexpress.ie\/news\/home\/2066244\/slieve-bloom-walking-festival-celebrates-30-years-with-series-of-walks-in-offaly-and-laois.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">READ NEXT: Slieve Bloom Walking Festival celebrates 30 years with series of walks in Offaly and Laois<\/a><br \/>On St Patrick\u2019s Day last March, he was named Grand Marshal for the Clara St Patrick&#8217;s Day parade and over Easter he attended a wedding and was one of the last to leave that night he revealed. <br \/>He loves socialising, getting out and meeting people, having the chat, telling stories and of course having a good laugh. He also loves attending the social dancing in Cloghan Hall but hasn\u2019t been able to attend the last few because of the chest infection but he said he will get back to the dancing as soon as he\u2019s feeling up to it. <br \/>Paddy loves storytelling and last Friday was no different as he recalled story after story and all the mischief he and his friends got up to when he was a younger man and there\u2019s still a bit of that mischief in his eyes!<br \/>It was in January of this year that he was officially pronounced Ireland&#8217;s oldest man.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.offalyexpress.ie\/news\/local-news\/2064001\/offaly-school-students-to-feature-in-new-quiz-show-to-be-screened-on-tg4.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">READ NEXT: Offaly school students to feature in new quiz show to be screened on TG4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IRELAND&#8217;S oldest man, Paddy Claffey who resides on the border between Ferbane and Cloghan, celebrated his 105th birthday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3656,180505,143826,61,60,43,8286,121991,73040],"class_list":{"0":"post-410933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-catherine-connolly","9":"tag-cloghan","10":"tag-ferbane","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-offaly","15":"tag-offaly-life","16":"tag-offaly-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}