Mary Dunlop

Mary Edith Hobart was born on 25th November 1912 at 33 South Mall, Cork City. She was the youngest of three children and the only daughter born to a medical doctor, Ted Hobart and his wife Edith Hobart. Edith died three days after giving birth to Mary. The family then moved to Blackrock Road in Cork and Currabinny in Cork Harbour.

Mary was educated in a boarding school in England, but eventually returned home to look after her ageing father in Currabinny. It was here that Mary met her husband, Andrew Egerton Dunlop, a young British army officer who was serving at Fort Camden (now Camden Fort Meagher). The couple were married on 25th November 1933, on Mary’s 21st birthday and they lived initially in Edinburgh, Scotland where he was stationed. They lived here until the outbreak of World War II, and they had a daughter, Jill, who was born in 1935.

Upon the outbreak of war, Andrew was part of the British Expeditionary Force, which was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. He was then posted to various areas in the Middle East and Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Libya and Ghana. Mary accompanied her husband on all these postings and helped in the war effort by driving an ambulance in North Africa.

At the end of the war, Andrew retired from the British Army, and the couple moved back to Currabinny. Andrew died in a plane crash in the Pyrenees in 1967.

Mary, from an early age, had an interest in the welfare of blind and vision-impaired people, having a blind uncle-in-law. While living in Britain, she became active in the British Guide Dog Association (BGDA) and continued to raise funds when she returned to live in Ireland.

Her interest in the welfare of Guide Dogs was further developed when she adopted a German Shepard, Jan, from the BGDA. She toured the country with Jan, showing the ability of the dog at agricultural shows and raising funds to send vision-impaired Irish people to the BGDA training facility in Exeter.

So popular was she that she appeared on RTE’s Late Late Show in 1969 with Jan.

It was through her association with the BGDA and John Weeks that she was introduced to Jim Dennehy, a Guide Dog owner. Jim had an idea that if a training facility was opened and developed in Ireland, a lot more Irish people could avail of the independence a Guide Dog would give them. Mary agreed, and they founded the Irish Guide Dog Association on 23rd June 1976.

Mary had huge personal qualities of idealism and tenacity, which helped the association to overcome early teething problems, especially on the dog welfare front. Their initial base in Drumcondra was not a suitable base and they did not have the facilities to breed their own dogs there.

Thanks to the drive and dedication of both Jim and Mary they succeeded in securing suitable premises on the Model Farm Road in Cork. Here, a proper breeding programme could be put in place to develop the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind, which Mary oversaw, becoming the organisation’s first President. She was also awarded A People of the Year Award in 1981, which she accepted as an acknowledgement of the work of the Irish Guide Dogs.

Mary was an intensely private and modest person. She was a perfectionist and extremely hard-working, known throughout the Irish Guide Dogs as ‘Mrs. D’. She did not like public speaking, but overcame this to promote IGD with her friend and co-founder Jim Dennehy.

On the 20th December 2003, Mary died at the age of 91, leaving behind an incredible legacy which today has changed thousands of lives.