A centenarian celebrated his 101st birthday today and said that his secret to a long and content life has been to keep moving and stay active.
Jack Martin, from Cill Chuáin in the Kerry Gaeltacht, moved to Dublin in 1934 and now lives in Blackrock in the south of the county.
He said: “Get up in the morning and keep moving, that’s why I’m still on my feet, because I get up every morning and I keep moving.
“I remember when I was a young lad, once people reached the pension age that was it, they had achieved their aim.
"They used to keep moving until that, but then the next day they’d sit down in the corner and they wouldn’t move about much anymore, it was like they’d finished the race, and then the next thing they’d be gone,” he told RTÉ’s Raidió na Gaeltachta.
Jack, a retired teacher, told interviewer Dara Ó Cinnéide: “Don’t lose interest in life... Keep active, if you can, that’s my advice to anyone.
"A little garden, or something that you’re interested in.”
Jack added that that morning he had already planted and earthed up his potatoes and read a newspaper before the interview.
He insisted that his wife and family are the two things that give him the most pleasure in life.
An avid football fan, he also reminisced fondly of days in Croke Park over the years.
Jack was a teacher, and always maintained an interest in education, and said that he was greatly looking forward to the centenary celebrations for Scoil Naomh Eirc in Baile an Mhóraigh next year, as he is now the oldest former pupil alive.
Talking of his youth in Cill Chuáin, he said that it was wonderful, despite the fact that people were poor.
“It was bliss. Although we were poor and had nothing, and if you had a penny that time you were a millionaire, that’s how poor people were.
"But we had a great life, we had all the neighbours who looked out for each other, minding each other, I don’t know if they still do that, maybe so, but not as well as they did back then.”
Jack has always had a great interest in language and sayings, and finished with a blessing:
Ná raibh do lámha riamh gan obair
Ná raibh do sparán riamh folamh
Ná raibh tú riamh tinn ná breoite
Is go raibh an ghaoth i gcónaí i do sheolta.
Go raibh solas Dé ag lonrú de shíor ort
Go raibh bogha báistí tar éis gach díle agat
Go raibh lámha carad i gcónaí farat
Agus go raibh gliondar Dé i do chroí is aiteas.
Guím ort sonas is sláinte
Guím ort grásta Dé
Neart agus fuinneamh gach lá chugat
Gean agus grá go héag.
