It was a ‘miracle in the making’ for grandmother-of-ten Annie Lynch who will go down in history as the first person in Ireland to receive the vaccine for COVID-19.
The 79-year-old Dubliner is now hoping her positive experience at St James’s Hospital Tuesday afternoon will inspire the country to get vaccinated as soon as it becomes available to them.
It comes as 1,546 additional cases of COVID-19 were reported, a new one-day record since the outbreak of the pandemic which cast a shadow over yesterday’s vaccine milestone.
Annie Lynch, 79, became the first person to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Ireland on Tuesday. Pic: Marc O’Sullivan
THE daughter of Ireland’s first Covid-19 vaccine recipient has revealed her father died in September, before her mother was hospitalised, in a year of tragedy but also hope for the family.
Great-grandmother Annie Lynch (79) yesterday became the first person here to receive the vaccine in an historic day in the fight against the deadly virus.
The Dublin native got her first vaccine jab in St James’s Hospital alongside clinical nurse manager Bernie Waterhouse, who works in a designated Covid-19 ward there.
Annie’s daughter Paula Lynch (57) wept yesterday as she spoke to Independent.ie about how she’d not hugged her mother since her 87-year-old father John’s funeral in September.
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A woman aged 79 and a Covid-19 ward nurse are the first two people to be vaccinated with the Covid-19 vaccine in the Republic of Ireland at St James s Hospital in Dublin which is in the same HSE hospital group as Portlaoise.
Annie Lynch, 79, from the Liberties area of Dublin was vaccinated on Tuesday, December 29 in St James s. She is a resident in the Mercer s Institute for Successful Ageing at St James s. Annie is the first person in the 26 counties to get the jab. I feel very privileged to be the first person in Ireland to receive the vaccine,” said Annie after getting the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. There is a bit of hope there now .
âWith the sadness and the grief around the funeral my mam took a stroke,â her daughter said.
While receiving treatment in hospital Ms Lynch had another stroke, and only regained the ability to walk and talk following physiotherapy, she said.
Ms Lynch is currently a resident of the Mercerâs Institute for Successful Ageing in St Jamesâs Hospital. Annie Lynch at St Jamesâs Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. Photograph: Marc OâSullivan/EPA/Pool
âShe is so, so determined to get better. I miss my dad so badly, we didnât want this to happen to my mother ⦠As a family we have been very sad, very down,â her daughter said.