My Greystones: Maureen McFall

It was only two weeks ago, as we charted the courtship of Joe and Carmel Ryan, that we noted how chance often plays a part when it comes to true love.

Well, this week, that magical moment of matrimonial madness has more to do with the chancer element than any random Disney meeting changing the course of a life.

When the bould Wiggy McFall met the love of his life, he didn’t quite spot the beautiful Maureen Moran at first. Instead, he asked her sister up to dance.

Luckily, Maureen’s sister said no. And that’s when the chancer element kicked in. Not the sort of man to take no for an answer, Wiggy then proceeded to ask Maureen up to dance. She said yes. Being the kindhearted sort of woman that doesn’t like to see anyone unhappy.

Less than a year later, Maureen also said, “I do”.

That fateful dance was back in July, 1976, at the Rugby Club, a fundraising regatta for the Greystones Rowing Club. The wedding was March 7th, 1977, and it was swiftly followed by the arrival of Johanna, then Ian, and then Lucinda.

First though, a little history. Maureen was actually born Maria Esther, up in sunny Blacklion, at no.97, on March 22nd, 1948, the Morans having made the move to these newly-built cottages years before, after the original family home on the North Beach had been washed away by that mighty February 1930 storm.

Maureen’s parents, Tom and Julia Kate, ran the famous Moran’s Fish Ship on La Touche Place, the former known for his way with a haddock, the latter for her invaluable free recipes, many of them still landing on dinner plates around Greystones today.

The teenage Maureen did her time in the family business, but once Dumbarton lad John Joseph McFall came waltzing into her life, and they started having those pesky kids, home took preference over work. As a schoolboy back in Scotland, the curly-haired John Joseph wanted to look like his idol, Elvis, and would often lather on handfuls of butter in the hope of slicking down his hair. It was one of the kid’s wily teachers who nicknamed the hip-swivelling young lad Wiggy, and the name stuck, right up until March 26th, 2009, the day Maureen lost her best friend.

Today, luckily, Maureen is surrounded by her three kids, and their kids, and when we swung by earlier this evening to take a few shots of this beautiful woman, well, she was one happy camper. And why wouldn’t she be? The McFalls might just be the sunniest, sweetest family in all of Greystones.

Must be all that healthy fish in the DNA. And the endless partying. And all that love.

This My Greystones first appeared on August 18th, 2017.