Mary Teresa Carmel Flynn died one week ago. It was St. Patrick's Day and that was her plan.

Of that, her family is sure. She was known to do things her way.

Born in poverty in Ireland, she brought up eight children here. Fiercely independent, she kept them fed and clothed by working hard -- carhop, chambermaid, gemologist.

She found joy to the end. "I'm the luckiest person alive," she told her family. She was last off the dance floor and impressed the judges at the 2007 Hamilton Seniors' Idol competition with her performance of Wind Beneath My Wings. She herself kept many aloft.

Life began nearly 81 years ago in the town of Dundalk, close to the border with Northern Ireland. She was christened Carmel, accent on the first syllable. (Canadians usually mispronounced that common Irish name, so here she often went by Mary.)

Her father ran a pawnshop. It burned down and the family never recovered.

At a community hall dance, Carmel met Jack Flynn. They married in 1952, lived with her mother and the first three children arrived.

Few saw a way out of the bleak life there, but in the spring of 1956 Jack decided to follow his brother to Canada. He got on at International Harvester and sent for the family.

They rented the top floor of a house in what is now Hess Village, not a stylish place to be back then.

There were many more addresses as the family grew. The one that oldest son Kevin remembers best was on a farm in Waterdown.

"There was no running water, no central heat," he says. "We would see our breath in the house and had to scrape ice from the windows.

"Mother got up at four to light the fire and then she made porridge."

But through all this there was humour, love and a passion for everything Irish. Sometimes, Kevin says, they were even allowed to stay home from school on March 17th.

"We knew Ireland was important by the food we ate, the company we kept, the songs we heard. We were bathed in Irish tradition."

It was Irish too, to have lots of kids. In order, they are Ann, Kevin, Sean, Stephanie, Danny, Deirdre, Mary and Paul.

In 1963, father injured his back at work and became disabled. He had an artistic streak and was retrained as a commercial artist, however that was never lucrative.

But mother had always stepped forward to bring home the rent. On roller skates, she worked the lot at the A & W on Queenston Road. She cleaned rooms at the downtown Y. And when her youngest was four, Carmel answered an ad placed by jeweller Murray Minden.

"He recognized mother's character and tenacity," Kevin says. "He saw her desire to succeed and provide for her family." She became a certified gemologist and a top salesperson.

Carmel became a widow 26 years ago and carried on. She sang at weddings, coddled grandchildren, took early-morning walks, saw shows on Broadway, travelled to Ireland half a dozen times, attended Our Lady of Lourdes with devoted frequency.

Before Christmas she was diagnosed with cancer, but it didn't seem to slow her much.

On the Friday before the end, she went to the Canada Blooms garden show in Toronto. And in the car en route home she sang along to Perry Como.

On the Saturday, her daughters were over. She wasn't feeling well, but said nothing. After she shooed her girls out, she called 911.

At the Henderson, they thought she might slip away the next day. But Carmel held on through Sunday and into the dawn of St. Patrick's Day.

Her husband died on Canada Day. With Carmel's passing on the 17th -- the Irish flag draped across her casket -- the couple has now saluted both the lands that shaped their lives.

StreetBeat appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday

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