'From the time my husband realised he was dying, all he did was encourage me to live'

'My late husband Seamus was an extraordinary man. When we first met, I was living in Cork and he was living in Mayo. It was rare enough to have a landline in those days, let alone a mobile phone, so we wrote to each other instead. I kept all the letters Seamus sent over the years and, after we got married, I was wrapping them in ribbon and putting them in a pretty box. He came in, saw that I was crying and asked: "Darling, what's wrong?" I said: "Well, I'm a married woman now so I'll never get another love letter'.

'That gave him an idea. We got married on the 17th of September and on the 17th of every month, for 30 years, he sent me a love letter.'

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