A born and bred Claddagh woman, it was only logical for Anne McElroy (n?e Coyne) to spend her working life just around the corner in the Galway Harbour Company. At the tender age of 16, Anne began working as a secretary for the company in 1965, and has just taken early retirement.

Anne's home in Newcastle is scattered with pictures and mementoes of the sea. In pride of place over the mantelpiece is a beautiful painting in three parts of the Long Walk, given to her by her daughter and painted by local artist Noreen O'Connor. In the hallway is another painting, this one of a Galway hooker.

Although she was reticent at first to do the interview, Anne admits that she is a regular reader of 'Me and the Sea', partly because she knows almost everyone featured to date.

During her years at the hub of marine life in Galway, Anne has seen many changes. Her own background in the Claddagh (where her grandfather, Michael Oliver, was a fisherman) gave her a natural interest in Galway port.

In 1965, when Anne began working there, Galway was very much a flourishing commercial port. The port had just been deepened and the redevelopment was finishing, allowing bigger ships to come in. Those included the likes of McDonagh's fertiliser, timber, grain, Donnelly's coal and ore from Tynagh mines. These days the commercial port is still busy, with oil, bitumen and coal the main commodities being traded. However, there were far fewer leisure boats then, she says. "It's not like today; there were very few leisure boats. Now it's all about yachts and, of course, the new marina is on the cards."

Of course, in any workplace the people are most important, and Anne says she was lucky to have worked with the likes of Jim Whyte, who was secretary and harbourmaster when she started, Tom O'Neill, Frank Sheridan, former harbourmaster, and Brian Sheridan, his son, who currently holds that position.

Anne was made a director of the Harbour Company in 2002, and held that position until April this year when a new board was appointed. As the employee representative on the board, she says, she was in a slightly different position. "It didn't change things greatly, I just wasn't the main note-taker at the meetings any more. When you're the employee representative, nothing is new to you; you've seen all the documents and the minutes, because you're the one typing them!"

Spending 42 years working in one place may be an alien concept to many of today's employees, but Anne maintains she never had any regrets. "Just before I got the job, I sat the Civil Service exams and got sixth in the country. My father was a worrier though, and he didn't want me to go to Dublin. Being the oldest of a family of eight, I had a lot of responsibility and, although we weren't poor, I certainly had to bring in the money."

Anne and her husband Eamonn, a Donegal man, enjoy travelling and have a house in Eamonn's homeplace where they spend a lot of weekends. She also hopes to go on another cruise after going on her first cruise around mainland Spain last year, which she loved.

Although she misses the Port Company, Anne is having a busy retirement. Her mother is ill, and requires round-the-clock care, while Anne's four grandchildren provide plenty of distraction.

On retirement, Anne says, "Only people who have nothing to do get bored. I have plenty to do!"

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