The woman believed to be Ireland's oldest person has died at the age of 109.
Ruby Druce, died peacefully yesterday evening at her niece Carmel’s home in Castlefinn, Co Donegal.
Mrs Druce lived life to the full and had a party with cake for her 109th birthday last New Year's Eve.
Mrs Druce became known as Ireland's oldest living person last August following the death of Galway woman Phyllis Furness, who was also 109.
Born in 1915, Mrs Druce lived through both World Wars and two pandemics, even contracting the Spanish flu, and Covid in 2023.
The eldest of five children, she was born Ruby Crawford to Elizabeth and George.
She worked from the age of 14 at Porter's Shirt Factory, where she spent 48 years.
Mrs Druce married Jim Druce in 1956, but sadly he passed away 14 years later.
A non-smoker and teetotaller, she only ever had one sip of poitín, and that was for medicinal purposes when she had a bad cold.
In 2019, she decided she would like to go to the cinema at 103 to see Downton Abbey.
It marked a gap of almost 80 years since she had been to the cinema as she recalled last cycling to the cinema in 1944.
Last year, Mrs Druce lost her beloved niece, Margo Butler, who had cared for her in Letterkenny for ten years.
Following Ms Butler's passing, Mrs Druce moved back to Castlefinn to live with her niece Carmel.
She is survived by a wide circle of nieces, one nephew, grandnieces and nephews and great-grandnieces and nephews.
