Here is an account of a remarkable C of I woman who was educated in sport at Derry High School, Lifford school, and the University of Ulster. She has been a popular figure in the lives of many hundreds of Athlone girls throughout three decades.
Her down to earth attitude, and good humour while coaching PE and hockey, encouraged many girls in the love of sport, in their teenage years, and into adulthood.
Frances Milling brought those talents to Our Lady’s Bower school in the late 1970s, following sporting experience gained while she was growing up on both sides of the Irish border.
Her family lived in Convoy, near Raphoe, Co. Donegal, and she went to school first in Derry High school, and then in Lifford. Frances was to her own admission, “mad keen on sports, and not at all academic,”.
“In Lifford, the school was a mixed Church of Ireland school, and if the hockey was on, and the boys were playing, I’d be in the middle of them, and I also played handball, and then we played cricket in the summer, and tennis, but hockey was my main sport,” said Frances.
Her father started the local cricket team in their home village in Donegal, and he was a huge influence in her life.
Read more in The Westmeath Independent about this remarkable lady, the death of her husband and the sudden death of her son – a former opening bowler for Ireland, and of her service in the choir at St Mary’s Parish Church.
http://www.westmeathindependent.ie/news/people/articles/2011/11/23/4007871-a-sporting-life/