Remembering Ethel Grene, late of Belturbet

Back in the summer of 2015, The Anglo-Celt's Séamus Enright interviewed the remarkable Ethel Grene, wife of the late Professor David Grene, and mother to the late Andrew Grene, who was working for the United Nations when he died tragically in the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

 

The interview with Mrs Grene was while the family continued a more than half century long tradition of warmly and generously opening their home on the outskirts of Belturbet to their neighbours and musicians from far and wide.

Ethel Grene, née May Weiss, died last month, February 27, 2020, in New York City.

Late of Chicago, IL, and of Derrycark, Belturbet, she will be laid to rest later today in Belturbet Parish Church of Ireland Churchyard beside her husband David, and son Andrew.

Her remains left the family's Derrycark home on foot, in a procession led by her surviving son Gregory, family and many friends.

 

 

Article printed July 2015 (edited):

 

“We have white men, black men and Orange men up and down this road, but there's no man like the Grene man. That's what they use to say,” grins Ethel Grene, wife of the late Professor David Grene, and mother to Andrew, who was working for the United Nations when he died in the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

She and her surviving family continued a 55-year tradition by revisiting their Belturbet home last week, and in doing so remembered the close connection they have to the local area.

The family first arrived in Belturbet at a time, and to an area, Derrycark, where the only transportation to town was by horse and cart.

Local man and close family friend Noel Fitzpatrick remembers how the regular return of the Grene's to the Erneside town was always welcomed, because with it heralded an “olde style country hooley”.

“You'd have maybe 100, 200 people there,” he says of the picturesque period country home, “and when the house filled up, people would spill into the garden, and the road, and the music would go on 'til all hours. Its an event that still brings the whole community together, with warmth and welcome of their home. It'd then be talked about six-months before, and six-months after.”

For Dublin-born Prof Grene, a lecturer in classics at the University of Chicago, and wife Ethel, the decision was simple.

They wanted a quiet and friendly place in rural Ireland where they could raise their family, twin sons, Gregory (lead singer and accordionist for Irish jig-punk band The Prodigals) and Andrew.

“He wanted a place to call home here in Ireland. He'd visited his cousins in Tipperary during the summers growing up, and he loved going to Wicklow,” explained Ethel, speaking to the Celt from the house's flag-stoned kitchen, and framed in her chair by the old open-hearth fireplace.

“We bought the farm site here unseen after seeing an advert in the Irish Independent. I borrowed $400 from the actor Mike Nichols (Mad Men) who was a friend of mine at the time. I paid him back a few years later,” she again laughs, her face widening with the happiness of that memory.

The Grene's became a frequent part of the community in Belturbet, with Ethel entering in show-jumping at the Belturbet Agricultural Show, and Gregory and Andrew both going to school locally, at the Fair Green and later St Bricin's Vocational School.

Following Andrew's tragic death in the Caribbean, he was remembered not just by the charitable foundation which bears his name, but by both local schools which named classrooms in his honour.

Gregory, who's life has been inspired by the part of his childhood spent growing up in Ireland, makes the pilgrimage each year with his own children, saying: “Belturbet very much is home. We grew up passionately attached to coming here, and always will be.”

Ethel adds: “Andrew felt the same, and we brought him back to be buried here. David is buried there as well and I'll be buried beside them when I die,” her voice breaking momentarily.

Gregory says the tradition of still having neighbours round to celebrate would have delighted both his father and brother.

“What this area has done for us is unbelievable. There is a reason why Andrew and my father are buried there, and why we keep coming back. This is home, this is why we come back year on year. No matter how much time we spend away from it, it remains that way for us,” he added.