WATCH: Limerick woman Betty toasts her 105th birthday with the Liam MacCarthy Cup

MANY talented and well-worn hands have hoisted the Liam MacCarthy Cup down through the decades, and this Friday it was the turn of a very special Kilmallock lady to clutch the famous cup.

And while it’s hard to eclipse the coveted silverware, Betty McElholm managed to do just that!

For not alone does Betty bubble with charisma and playful divilment but on this Friday she was in extra good spirits as she was celebrating her 105th birthday.

Yes, that’s right, 105 today! 

Betty, who was born on March 18, 1917, was joined at her Kilmallock home on the town’s main street by her nephew Liam Murphy who presented her with the MacCarthy Cup for the special occasion. 

The words ‘Betty in Kilmallock’ had been pencilled into the other Liam’s special diary under the date March 18 by Limerick GAA county board secretary Mike O’Riordan a number of weeks back, and today was the day the pair would reunite.

For it’s not the first time that Betty has met Liam - as she was quick to announce when she was presented with the cup. 

“I met it before,” came the quick-fire response from the 105-year-old as her nephew Liam handed the cup over.

Limerick team manager John Kiely walked in Betty’s front door on August 22, 2018, just three days after the senior hurlers won their first All- Ireland title in 45 years. 

Limerick's Betty, 101, enjoys a cuppa with mystery man John Kiely

During that visit, John was completely taken aback by the old shop counter and commodities to the front of Betty’s home. Betty’s mother Mary ran the shop at the front of the premises.

Betty was just three years of age when the family home and shop was burned to the ground by the Black and Tans in July 1920. When the premises was rebuilt the family moved back in.

Sitting in the same premises this Friday by the open fire, Betty was after placing a bouquet of flowers - sent by friends in Australia - on the old shop counter and was also after opening a special delivery from the  President of Ireland, Micheal D Higgins - a medal. 

Having had her appendix out when she was 16, Betty didn’t have to go to hospital again until she was 84 when she had a hip replacement. She gets some pains in the bones alright, the knees, but nothing major and made it through the Covid-19 pandemic without as much as a sneeze!

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The big question everyone wants an answer to is, how does Betty keep so fresh and fabulous at 105?

Well, for Betty, it seems to be all in the genes.

Her mother (Mary O’Leary) lived to be 95.

One of her sisters, Bobby, lived to be 97.

And Betty never drank!

She smoked a little bit in school and ate everything including quite a lot of sweets, mostly chocolate.

Betty didn’t have far to travel to meet her husband Sam McElholm from Northern Ireland.

“He was teaching in Bulgaden and lived here in town. We would go to the pictures,” she smiled.

Sam has since passed away.

Each evening she negotiates some 17 steps of a staircase which leads to her bedroom. “It’s a wide staircase, no problem,” she smiled.

Well here’s to many more years climbing those steps, Betty - happy birthday!