| Long-lost love ends in marriage 36
years later  By
Niamh Hennessy
RETURING to Ireland John Walsh never imagined he’d meet his childhood
sweetheart 36 years later.
But he did and he the couple not only reignited their romance from 1968
they married on Valentine’s Day last week.
Widow Ann McMahon and her teenage sweetheart John Walsh, who lived in
England for most of his working life, tied the knot four decades after
they first met at a dance in the Jetland Ballroom, Limerick on September
17, 1968.
Ann from Rosbrien in Limerick and John from Crosshaven in Co. Cork dated
for a few months. She was 18 and he 24.
But fate sent them on their separate ways with John moving to England
to work for most of this time.
In the intervening years they both married and brought up families but
never met again.
Ann’s husband Gerard Doyle died in 2000 and John got divorced
in 2002.
But 36 years later fate played its part again when John, then 62 and Ann,
56, met by chance.
John, a retired painting contractor who settled in Limerick, said: “Since
that parting in 1968 I never set eyes on Ann and did not know if she was
dead or alive.
“I was in the Crescent shopping centre and passing a jewellers called
Chic. I just happened to look in and saw this woman. God I said to myself
that’s Ann.
“I went over to her and she knew me straight away. Memories of younger
times came flooding back as we chatted away. There were a few tears. The
old romance sparked again.”
Ann recalled that when John walked into the shop she almost collapsed.
She said: “I knew it was John. My knees nearly went from under me.
I had kept an old photo taken of us in the Jetland that night in 1968
when we first met. The Miami Showband were playing that night. I have
put the photo on our wedding invitation cards alongside a recent photo
of the two of us.”
John and Ann married at the Limerick Registry Office last week on Valentine’s
Day and were joined afterwards by 150 guests at the Woodlands Hotel in
Adare.
True to tradition Ann didn’t permit John to see her wedding outfit
until he joined her at the registry office.
Her grown-up children Aisling, Daniel and Martin were also present along
with John’s daughter Michelle who is married in London and expecting
her first baby next June and his son Nigel.
John who was a rally driver for many years plans to take Ann on a motoring
honeymoon to France.
|
