“I’m looking forward to when he’s a little bit older, to be making buns, going to the playground, going to the zoo, things like that. Those are the gems in life.”

Mary Kennedy is talking about her 16-month-son grandson Paddy and her appreciation of spending time with him and his parents, daughter Eva and son-in-law Benny.

“I think we’ve come to realise during COVID that stuff is very transitory and not important. 

“We can get by with a lot less than we thought we could and it’s the friendships, the relationships, the love that we pass from one person to another that is really what life is about.”

Mary talks of her ‘great admiration’ for daughter Eva, particularly considering she, Benny and Paddy moved into their new home in Limerick on March 13, just when visitors couldn’t pop down.

“She said that after about two months of it, she felt Paddy was just so fed up with the sight of the two of them, that if the postman arrived to the door, he was beaming,” laughs Mary. “It’s been kind of a strange introduction to motherhood for her but then after June 29 when we were allowed to go down, it was lovely. Again, he beamed when he saw myself and [daughter] Lucy. 

“Now Eva’s back Monday to Friday in Dublin, teaching and Lucy – because her photography is on hold for the moment – is Paddy’s official childminder which is lovely. And she’s also his godmother and they’re thick as thieves. They have a wonderful, easy relationship and it’s very special.”

She talks of the special bond that her mother had with her grandchildren and the stories that are only now surfacing.

“She used to put butter on their bread and the sprinkle sugar on it. Of course they loved it! And they wouldn’t have told me that at that time as, pardon the pun, they knew what side their bread was buttered on!

“She was a real rock for me and I would like to think that I would be a rock for Eva. 

“She is in another city but because I’m retired from Nationwide now, I have more freedom. I’m still working but it’s not the relentless or constant journeying around the country now, I can work around things.”

Our conversation moves onto relishing the time spent with children because time seems to pass so quickly.

“I realised when I was a young mother and juggling and working, you didn’t just relish the time with the children in the way that you would have if you’d realised how quickly those years passed. I always say it to younger women: don’t feel that when they’re having their tea and not fighting, don’t think ‘Ok, that’s the time for me to go and do a job,’ to just sit down and enjoy it with them. I think there’s more of a sense of that now that we’ve all experienced this life changing moment of COVID where values have been put into a new perspective and also where things have slowed down by necessity. It’s nice to have that.”

We ask Mary what she sees the role of grandparent as being.

“I think in any walk of life, if you can harness the experience and wisdom of somebody who has gone before, in whatever path you’re talking about, that is a bonus,” she says. 

“I do get calls from Eva, ‘What do I do in this situation?’ and it’s very comforting. That’s the role I see: to be a comfort, to be a support and also to just give her a breather. 

“It’s nice for her to come up to this house – Lucy refers to it as the ‘Queendom’ since lockdown because it’s all women – and have that mother to daughter bond. Also I think all little babies and children are special but when you can look at him in his highchair and say, ‘This is my bloodline,’ the instincts where you would kill for them comes into play there. As a grandparent, you would walk on hot coals to help and facilitate and just love that little person.”

We say that the love for a grandchild is almost intensified because they’re your child’s child and she agrees.

“Because of that experience and wisdom, you know, I think the older you get the more you view life as a really precious gift and health as being a really precious gift so you don’t take it lightly. 

“Yes, I do think it’s almost a primal response, it comes from your gut. It comes from your heart initially but it’s even further down in your gut that you’re connected to this person. It’s not just a lovely baby who is healthy and happy and doing funny things, this is part of you.”

Her advice to soon-to-be-grandparents is to ‘just be there.’

“I know my boundaries. I’m there and I’ve always said, ‘I’m there whenever you want me’ but I think they need to have their time as a family too. They took a week in West Cork recently and a couple of people said to me, ‘Would you go down for an overnight?’ and that would the last thing on my mind, no, this is their family holiday. They are a family and they have to make their unit as well. I think that’s a piece of advice I would give, but also just to be there. 

“Life is precious and the moments we get as grandparents with little ones are just so special.”