‘We’ll bring Bridgey home’

“Bridgey was Cavan, she loved it there, and this would have meant everything to her. We'll bring her home,” the heartbroken family of a local woman who passed away earlier this month have said, as they endeavour to fulfil her lasting wish to be buried on home soil.

Bridget 'Bridgey' Rosie (nee Almond) died suddenly of a heart attack on Tuesday, November 6 last, at Ramsay, a coastal town in the north of the Isle of Man where she had been living in recent years.
An ex-Corporal in the Reserve Defence Forces, tributes have flowed since news of the hugely popular woman's untimely death first began to filter through.
“Everyone here is devastated,” Bridgey's cousin Mary Mooney told The Anglo-Celt this week.
Bridgey, who also previously acted in Philip Doherty's award-winning stage play ‘The Devil's Céilí’, is survived by her two sons, John and David, and daughters Hannah and Shauna, family, relatives and many friends.
Growing up in the Tullacmongan area, Bridgey was educated locally at St Clare's and later at Cavan's Royal School, before working locally for many years. She also attended Cavan Institute and, after moving to the Isle of Man, began work as an administrative officer with an island-based security firm.
It was to Mary that Bridgey openly confided, should she die, that her final wish was to be laid to rest beside her aunt Bridget (Biddy) at Killygarry Cemetery, who along with 
fellow aunt Kathy Cartwright and uncle Edward Clancy, played a crucial role in her upbringing.
“[Her Aunts and Uncle] were basically her parents, they meant everything to her, and I know Cavan meant everything to her as well,” said Mary. “[Bridgey] told me that before she left Cavan, and it didn't matter where she was, that she wanted to be brought back, and she wanted us to make sure she came back to Killygarry to be beside Biddy.”
To meet the hefty cost of repatriating her body from the UK back to Ireland, her family reached out to the community and those who knew her best, and launched a Go Fund Me appeal to repay the costs.
At the time this newspaper went to print on Tuesday afternoon, the appeal had almost reached its €3,000 target total, with further events to honour Bridgey and her life planned.
Family members, including Bridgey's brothers and sons, are currently on the Isle of Man working on the return of her remains back to Cavan. “It will mean everything if we can make this happen for her, really,” says Mary.
“The Kevin Bell Fund, I just can't say enough about it and laud it enough because it’s fantastic,” she added.
Mary's brother, John Edward Cartwright, based in New Zealand, who helped establish the Go Fund Me appeal says Bridgey was like a “little sister” to him as they grew up together.
He described his cousin as “the life and soul of any get together or party... a lovely, lively, little pixie - much loved by all.”
Mary agrees that such a description is “very apt”, and that it will be how a great many people will not only fondly remember, but greatly miss the late Bridgey.
“That's her in a nutshell. She was 47 going on 27, so outgoing, the life and soul of any party and room she went into. If she didn't know someone, then it wouldn't have been long before she got to know them.”