Rory Healy stood at the back of the church in Askea, Carlow Town, quietly watching in stunned amazement as people kept walking through the doors.
By the time the funeral Mass was drawing to a close, more than 300 people had crowded in to pay their respects to a woman few of them had known.
A long-time funeral director in the midlands town, he'd initially feared that no one apart from himself, the priest and the pallbearers would be there to say goodbye to Mary Regan, an 89-year-old woman originally from West Cork, who died last week in a local nursing home.
Just after 11pm the night before her funeral, he posted a message to the All About Carlow Facebook page, which has more than 43,000 followers. He appealed to those who could spare 45 minutes to come and bid farewell to a woman who had adopted Carlow as her hometown. He'd hoped for maybe 30 to show up, in the end there was ten times that amount.
It's a story that has touched many - a town rallying to give a send off to a woman who had died alone, in a nursing home almost 300km away from the village where she was born and reared.
While the rallying of Carlow Town has been a beautiful thing to witness, it's also comforting to know that in the days since her funeral Mass on Tuesday, it's emerged that in life Mary was far from being a lonely soul.
Sallyanne Sullivan is a hairdresser who used to work at the Anno Beauty Salon in the middle of Carlow Town. For a couple of years, right up until she went into the Hillview Nursing Home about 18 months ago with dementia, Mary would visit Sallyanne regularly to get her hair done. The two women bonded over a mutual admiration for Dublin hairdresser to the stars, David Marshall.
'I partly trained in David Marshall, and Mary used to go there,' Sallyanne explains of the eponymous salon. 'She loved David, so I think that's why she liked me doing her hair. I used to work with a few celebrities, like Terry Keane the gossip columnist. Mary kind of reminded me of Terry, both of them absolute ladies and both so very glamorous.'
Sallyanne was also struck by the loving relationship Mary had with her long-time partner Fred Lang, who also went by the name Tony. 'That was a proper love affair,' says Sallyanne.
For each of her appointments, Fred would bring Mary into the salon, where she also got regular facials. A few hours later he would pop back in to collect her. 'He treated her like a queen,' says Sallyanne. 'He'd link her arm and escort her right into the chair, I used to say to the girls, "that's how I want to be treated".'
The photograph used on the RIP website to announce her death, according to Sallyanne, didn't do Mary justice. 'She was very attractive, not big at all, in fact she was like a little doll,' she said.
Mary Regan was originally from the small village of Adrigole on the Beara peninsula in west Cork. One of five children, her siblings Paddy, Con, Patricia and Jerry all predeceased her.
The last of her brothers died just two years ago, and she returned to Cork to attend his funeral. It's believed she met Fred Lang in London several decades ago, where they lived in Kensington together and Fred worked as a sausage manufacturer.
His grandfather, Frederick Lang, was one of a wave of pork butchers from Germany who emigrated to Ireland in the late 1800s. He married an Irish woman and opened his own business on Wexford Street in Dublin. Only a couple of years ago Fred contacted the Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland to ask for advice on producing and selling black pudding.
Mary had been suffering with the onset of dementia for some time before finally moving into Hillview Nursing Home . According to those who knew the couple, Fred struggled badly with the decision to let others take care of Mary full-time, but as her condition deteriorated, it was the correct choice.
He visited her every day, bringing her communion from the local church. But about six months later, Fred was diagnosed with cancer. He told very few people and it's thought Mary was never aware of his illness. He died just weeks later on November 27, 2023, in the Carlow District Hospital.
Mary Regan died on Friday, November 29. Tasked with organising her funeral, Rory knew she'd had few visitors since Fred died and was unaware of any close relatives living in the area. So he posted a message to the Facebook page, sharing the details of her funeral Mass and explaining her situation.
Despite the sad occasion, the atmosphere was joyous. 'I got a huge sense of humanity, and community and that everyone was actually happy to be there, to see there was this big crowd there for Mary,' he says. 'Even though it was a solemn occasion it was a good day for Carlow and for Mary, that she wasn't sent off back to Cork alone.'
There was another Mass for Mary in Adrigole on Wednesday, before she was buried with her family in the local graveyard. At least 70 people turned up to say goodbye, including a grandniece who did the readings.
Those who knew her, even briefly, are happy she got the send-off she deserved. 'It's sad, but in saying that I don't think she was lonely, ' says Sallyanne Sullivan .
'I don't think Mary was a person with no friends or family, I think that's just what happens sometimes in the end, especially when you live to a good age. But I know Fred would be so happy that all those people turned out for her, his little queen.'
