Mrs Nellie Jude, originally Garrihy from Ennistymon, celebrating her 106th birthday. Photograph by John Kelly
Inspirational Ennistymon lady celebrates her 106th birthday
January 25, 2021
th birthday on Friday, January 29.
Nellie Jude formerly lived in Newquay on The Flaggy Shore, where she is much loved by her neighbours. She moved back to North Clare after a long career in England where she trained as a nurse and where she and her husband, Ernest Arthur Jude, ran a number of very popular pubs in London and Essex.
Christened Helen Garrihy in January 1915, she is the daughter of Michael and Helen Garrihy (née Vaughan). Nellie had 12 siblings and, at the age of 19, went to train as a nurse in England at The Royal Chest Hospital. She married Ernest Arthur Jude from Cambridgeshire and had two children, Phil and the late Jenny.
This brings me to Galway’s most famous food asset: the oyster. Oysters have been a part of the food culture of the west of Ireland for thousands of years. They are sown into the blood of its citizens. Large midden beds (ancient dumps) demonstrate our love of the oyster.
Every September they are celebrated in the Galway Oyster Festival, which is the oldest continuing oyster festival in the world. The festival marks the new season of the native oyster: a briney, succulent beauty that embodies our rugged terrain. Kelly’s Oysters are world famous and they are not to be missed when visiting Galway; they are best enjoyed with a pint of stout. However, one should not forget the other amazing oyster companies, namely Dooncastle and Flaggy Shore, both of which produce fantastic Pacific oysters. This breed of oyster arrived in the 1960s and has taken well to the waters of Galway Bay. You can find it all year round as opposed to the native oyster, which is only available from September to