![\"Hugh](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TFXVPPYHJ5ERXLBEQDQFFDRP7A.JPG\")
Hugh O’Neill (105) <\/p>\nHugh O\u2019Neill is older than the Irish State. <\/p>\n
When he was born on September 7th, 1921, there were \u201cstill British soldiers on Grafton Street\u201d, as he puts it, and the Anglo-Irish Treaty had not been signed. <\/p>\n
He will be 105 on Monday. Birthdays, he says half in jest, are \u201cold hat when you have had so many of them\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople always say to me: \u2018What\u2019s the secret to your long life?\u2019 and I always give them the same answer: \u2018I haven\u2019t a clue. It\u2019s the luck of the game.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
According to Gerontology Wiki, an unofficial list of Ireland\u2019s oldest people (there is no official list), O\u2019Neill is the State\u2019s third-oldest man, just behind Paddy Claffey from Co Offaly and John Albert Allen from Sligo, who were also born in 1921. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s no official list of Ireland\u2019s oldest drivers, either, but there can\u2019t be many older than O\u2019Neill. He still drives his 2005 Citro\u00ebn C5 to the shops and to his Mount Merrion Friendship Club in south Dublin every week. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a better driver than I was when I was in my 20s,\u201d he says. \u201cIn your 20s, there wasn\u2019t as much traffic. You weren\u2019t as conscious of your surroundings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a really meticulous driver. I drive at 25 miles per hour. I\u2019m this guy that people behind me are honking at to get out of my way. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to have a sign printed on the back of my car: \u2018I don\u2019t give a damn, honk away.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill lives on his own in Mount Merrion, reads The Irish Times on his phone and only uses his glasses for reading.<\/p>\n
Hugh O’Neill (105) <\/p>\n
He has the usual aches and pains that come with a person of his vintage, but age has not diminished his sense of humour. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have such a quantity of accoutrements inside me that if I live long enough, I\u2019ll be a robot,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill\u2019s wife Diane, who was born in England and to whom he was married for 58 years, died in 2009. She was evacuated as a child during the Blitz and ended up living in Ireland. He still misses her. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been on my own since then,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not to be recommended, I can tell you. It\u2019s not so much living on your own, but it\u2019s the loss of someone you are still in love with.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is grateful to the Mount Merrion Friendship Club for the social outlet, but notes, in a group for the elderly, that he\u2019s the oldest \u201cby a long shot\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"Hugh](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Y5BGLYA6AFBPTNXZY7PNS2QSXQ.JPG\")
Hugh O’Neill <\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill has lived a healthy lifestyle. He is a moderate drinker and quit smoking when he was 25, but others, he points out, have also lived healthy lives and not lived as long. <\/p>\n
He thinks growing up on a farm in Lisronagh, south Tipperary, where the food was healthy and there was plenty of exercise, has been a factor. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe always ran barefoot as a kid,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had an idyllic childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
When his father died, he carried on farming before opting for a desk job at the age of 29. He eventually became one of the first public relations practitioners in Ireland, before retiring at 50 in 1971. <\/p>\n
He then bought the Kiltimon fruit farm near Ashford in Co Wicklow, which he had for more than 30 years. At peak times 300 people would come through the gates to pick their own. <\/p>\n
The biggest change in his lifetime in Ireland has been increased wealth. He grew up in an era when many more people were poor and poverty was more extreme. <\/p>\n
\u201cI remember young fellows hanging around the streets without the price of a packet of cigarettes wearing nearly ragged clothes,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn general, the lives of the \u2018have-nots\u2019 have improved. There are very few people destitute and hanging around looking for jobs now, and there are all sorts of health payments and all that sort of thing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the well-off, the ordinary wealthy people, your doctor, your solicitor, your accountant, your well-off shopkeeper, life has not changed for them as much. They all had a good life.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hugh O\u2019Neill is older than the Irish State. When he was born on September 7th, 1921, there were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[74],"tags":[11911,52,18,19,17,33526,30114,82],"class_list":["post-673490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-citroen","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mount-merrion","tag-second-world-war","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117217046842812337","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}