MY sister Frances was born on April 14 1956. She was a middle child in a family of 13 children.
Three of us died shortly after they were born. Sixty years later, on June 13 this year, Frances died after a short illness.
Sibling grief is a very special grief. Brothers and sisters usually know each other for the whole of their lives.
So during these sad days, Margaret and Paddy and Anne and Seán and Maura and Deirdre and Dominic and me are reflecting, no doubt, in our own ways on childhood memories and all the good times and bad times of lives bound up together.
But this isn’t just about us. It's especially about Frances’s own wee family. It’s about Patrick and Ciaran, Liam, Sinead, Maura and their spouses and children. It is about our Frances, their mammy and mamo.
Frances had a hard life. Let there be no doubt about that.
Some girls and other young people have injustice heaped upon them in their formative years. It is to their great credit that many of them, like Frances, survive to grow into strong, loving, caring independent women.
When the British army brought their war to Ballymurphy, our house in Divismore Park, opposite the military base at Henry Taggart, was a particular target.
Following the internment swoops and at the time of the Ballymurphy Massacre, wee Maureen McGuinness and Colette helped our mother to evacuate the younger children from our home. Frances was among them. She was 16.
As they fled the British Paratroopers fired over their heads. When asked what she did, Frances would smile and say "I ran as fast as I could".
Our family never returned to 11 Divismore Park. The Paras took over the house and wrecked it. It was demolished later.
This was Frances’s introduction to decades of war, of house raids and arrests, prison visits, protests in support of the prisoners, to political campaigning.
She marched and demonstrated with the rest of the risen women. These ordinary extraordinary women took a stand in their own homes, on the streets, the prisons and the churches.
She marched and demonstrated with the rest of the risen women. These ordinary extraordinary women, like Frances, took a stand in their own homes, on the streets, the prisons and the churches.
But she also found love.
She and young Patrick Mulvenna were married on November 11 1972. She was widowed less than a year later.
Patrick was an active IRA volunteer and was killed along with the legendary Jim Bryson when they were ambushed on August 31 1973 in Ballymurphy.
Frances was pregnant and gave birth to his son, Patrick, on what would have been their first wedding anniversary.
As a young single parent she faced up to all the challenges life threw at her with fortitude and courage. I am sure she wasn’t always in a good place but she persisted. And she prevailed.
And she found love again. With another IRA volunteer, Billy McAllister.
From that union came Ciaran, Liam, Sinead and Maura. Patrick was outnumbered by McAllisters but they all thrived together.
Billy and Frances eventually separated but remained good friends. Billy died in March 2019.
I know all of us probably think our mammy is the best mammy we ever had. But Patrick, Ciaran, Liam, Sinead and Maura are certain that Frances was special.
As long as you knew how far you could go. They all agree that you couldn’t cross her. If you went too far the reprimand was accompanied with a stern reminder: "I’m your Mammy and don’t you forget it."
But if this wee woman - all four foot and eight inches of her - was Super Mammy, she was Super Dooper Granny.
It was as if she wanted to ensure that whatever she lost out on in her youth, her grandchildren would be cherished and nurtured so that they might reach their full potential.
Frances was a quiet republican. She told her children she wanted to see a united Ireland. She believed in that. She also believed in Jesus and his mother. She believed in prayer.
She suffered from ill health for years. But she always said everything was okay, even when it wasn’t.
Frances told me she didn’t want to die. Did she have a premonition that she would not grow to be too old?
She insisted on Patrick bringing her to Milltown Cemetery in March to pick a grave and she went to the Credit Union to pay for it. She rejected the overtures of the man from Milltown a few times before picking her spot.
"I don’t want to be looking at the motorway," she told him. "I need to see the mountain and the republican plot’.
She also sorted out her own funeral arrangement. When Patrick queried all this she dismissed his concerns. She was only planning for the future and saving her family any trouble, she told him.
Each of her clann will remember her acts of kindness and giving, but for me it was her presence at Maura and Michael's wedding just a few short weeks ago, when she discharged herself from hospital, in pain and under pressure. This was an act of unconditional maternal love. She wanted everyone to have a happy memory.
Even though we did not want her to die we give thanks that Frances passed quickly, eased by the wonderful nurses and carers and medical workers.
And we give thanks for her life. All of us are privileged to have loved her and to be loved by her.
Slán Francesco. xo
Gerry Adams