Maybe it's the water, but Luke still has a spring in his step at 102
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EATING a boiled egg for breakfast every morning, putting a couple of generous spoons of sugar in your tea and having a devoted wife is the secret to a long life.
Although shunning carrots and porridge and smoking cigarettes until his 60th birthday hasn't done Roscommon man Luke Dolan any harm either.
The Strokestown native, who is 102 years old, is living proof that there definitely is something in the water in Roscommon.
Luke drank water from his own well for most of his life and worked long days and nights on his eight-acre farm. However, he is not surprised that his native county has the highest life expectancy in the State -- 76.9 for men and 82.2 years for women.
Cholesterol has never been a problem for Luke, who admits he gets a longing for a bit of "spud and butter" and his favourite dinner is "bacon and cabbage".
The small farmer also has good genes on his side. His sister, May, was about to turn 107 when she died in America in recent years. His two other sisters, Nancy and Nora, lived into their 90s.
Mr Dolan was born on June 4, 1906, and has never owned a car in his lifetime, "only an ass and cart".
He has lived through events that most people have only ever read about in history books but stayed in Roscommon through the toughest times to take care of his elderly parents.
Luke says he was as "wild as a hay" until he married his late wife, Peggy.
"She was a great wife, 5ft 10, very good-looking. She could have done better than me, but she took me," he laughs.
The farmer kept fit and out of trouble by playing handball and football for Strokestown GAA in his youth. "There was no dancing or carousing like there is now," he says.
Alcohol didn't interest Luke either. "I never went to a dance in my life'" he says.
Watching football and hurling on television is Luke's main interest nowadays. There are some drawbacks to living a long life, however, and he says there are times when "you wish you weren't alive".
When he returns to his home place in Strokestown, Luke says he feels lonely, as the place has changed so much. "That time passes you and you have to put up with it," he says.
- Eimear Ni Bhraonain
