The death has occurred of Anna (Ann) Hoban (née Kelly) Closgregg, Thomastown, Kilkenny

Died on November 10, 2024

The death has taken place of Anna Hoban (nee Kelly) Closgregg, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny and formerly of Station Road Thomastown.

Anna passed away peacefully surrounded by her loving family on the 10th of November at St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny.

Predeceased by her husband Greggie (Gregory). Anna will be sadly missed by her children Mai, Patricia, Larry and Joe, her son-in-law Paul, daughters-in-law Mary and Mags, her grandchildren Evan, Rebecca and her husband Willie, Joanne, Adam and his partner Katie, Laura, Gregg, Mike and Jilly, her great granddaughter Abbie, nieces, nephews, relatives, friends and neighbours.

Reposing in the Mercy side chapel, Church of the Assumption, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny, from 5pm to 8pm on Monday the 11th of November 2024. Prayers at 7.30pm. Requiem mass on Tuesday the 12th of November at 11am in the Church of the Assumption Thomastown followed by burial in St Mary’s New Cemetery Thomastown.

Anna’s family would like to thank the staff in both the Surgical Medical Unit, St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny and Castlecomer District Hospital for their great care and kindness.

‘Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis’

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Reflection

“The sun will be darkened.” How does Pope Francis say we can help bring light back to the darkened sun? And what can we learn from the fig tree?
Dear brothers and sisters, that is the word that makes hope blossom in the world and relieves the suffering of the poor: tenderness. Compassion that leads you to tenderness. We need to overcome our self-absorption, interior rigidity, which is the temptation nowadays, that of the “restorationists”, who want a Church completely orderly, completely rigid: this is not of the Holy Spirit.
We have to overcome this, in order to make hope blossom amid this rigidity. It is up to us to overcome the temptation to be concerned only about our own problems; we need to grow tender before the tragedies of our world, to share its pain. Like the tender leaves of a tree, we are called to absorb the pollution all around us and turn it into goodness.
It is useless to keep talking about problems, to argue and to be scandalized – all of us can do that. What we need to do is imitate the leaves that daily, imperceptibly, turn dirty air into clean air. Jesus wants us to be “converters” of goodness: people who breathe the same heavy air as everyone else, but respond to evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21). People who act: by breaking bread with the hungry, working for justice, lifting up the poor and restoring their dignity. As the Samaritan did.
Pope Francis