WHEN Annie Flynn's husband died in 1991, she had never spent a night alone. Having grown up in Co Clare surrounded by four adoring brothers, she met Michael . . . the garda she would wed . . . around the end of the second world war. By 1949, he was posted at the Phoenix Park depot, and they were married and settled in Dublin's North Circular Road.

In her time, Annie was a political activist, feminist, homemaker, farm manager, shopkeeper. She loved to dance, she could fix any machine, she was a keen socialiser, a marvellous cook, a voracious reader of newspapers.

Today, the couple's only child Catherine sits in the kitchen of the family home on the North Circular, where her mother spent most of her life, before moving to the Leas Cross nursing home in 2002.

She points to the corner where her father died peacefully, aged 79, having walked 12 miles that day.

But Annie's passing was not so peaceful for Catherine, who still does not know the exact circumstances of her mother's death and whose questions to the health authorities remain unanswered.

When her father died, Catherine moved back into the family home with her husband John and their newborn baby, Jack. Annie "worshipped Jack like a son and John as a confidant and fellow news-lover, " says Catherine.

But as her health deteriorated and her care needs grew, she became more anxious. After she fell and broke her hip in the mid 1990s, she needed help getting dressed and preparing food. Early in 2002, she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. From then on, she needed assistance doing most everyday tasks. "She was really failing; it came to a point that if we weren't in the house, we had to have home help in to look after her. Also, if I moved more than a few feet away from my mother, she got agitated." They were exhausted and Annie grew increasingly fretful.

Annie and her daughter talked about her options.

Annie realised Catherine and her family could not be there continuously and that she would be better off in a home where there would always be someone nearby. "There was an inevitability about it. She knew, because of her increasing dislike for being on her own for more than five minutes and her failing health, that this was the way things were heading. She'd say to me: 'Catherine, what will become of me. I am getting more and more feeble?' " Together they went and looked at the Garda retirement home. Annie liked the home and they put her name on the waiting list. Catherine rang up the health board to ask about financing her mother's care. The health board told Catherine about a new high-end nursing home in Swords called Leas Cross. They told her there was a vacancy there.

Catherine went to see Leas Cross. She thought "it felt like a fancy hotel more than a nursing home and absolutely loved the place". She told Annie about the place and as she "trusted me completely, she agreed to go there. And that's one of the hardest things, that's very difficult in the light of the way things have gone."

In April 2002 Annie moved in to Leas Cross nursing home, which at that stage had just 31 beds. She shared a room and "she settled in well, she had a bell over the bed, she had someone beside her".

Overall, things seemed to be good for Annie.

Catherine, John and Jack visited regularly. "We were all very happy with the home."

On the day that the Leas Cross extension was opening in October 2003, Catherine went in to see her mother. There was a sign on the door saying Annie Flynn rang the bell eight times before nine o'clock. Catherine knew her mother could have done that, as she was an anxious woman, and spoke to her about it. John, her son-in-law, went in three days later and the notice was still hanging on the door. Annie used to ring John's office and to tell him the staff weren't answering the bell.

From October 2003 to February 2004, Annie's health seriously declined. This was the same time that Leas Cross expanded hugely from 31 to 110 beds and took in over 20 high-dependency residents from St Ita's psychiatric hospital. On two occasions during this time, Annie was taken by ambulance to Beaumont where she was diagnosed with kidney failure. Annie's family were never given an explanation for the kidney failure, however; Catherine remembers being told once it was due to dehydration. Prof Des O'Neill's recent report on Leas Cross notes the high incidence of kidney failure due to the insufficient administration of liquids to patients in Leas Cross.

During these last four months, Annie was extremely weak and spent much of her time in bed.

Annie's family noticed that although there were many more patients, there seemed to be no extra staff. Annie missed the staff she had got to know as they were spending more time in the new unit.

The whole complexion of the place changed. It was like a different world to the Leas Cross Annie had gone into. There were many residents with disturbing behaviour. Annie's grandson Jack noticed it. He didn't like visiting as much and stopped wanting to go there.

Annie, who had always been a very articulate woman, did not complain during the last months of her life. She was not able to, she was too feeble.

On 14 February 2004, John dropped in to see his mother-in-law about teatime. She was extremely weak. He called Catherine to come in immediately. As soon as Catherine arrived in with her cousin, her mother's breathing, which had been extremely laboured, relaxed. She, her cousin and two nurses sat by Annie's side and prayed. Catherine held her hand and told her not to be anxious, that soon she would be with her big fella, Michael, her brothers and friends. She died 45 minutes later, a peaceful death. No doctor was called, there was no post mortem. During the first three months of 2004, a patient a week died in Leas Cross nursing home.

In February 2004, the coroner requested that all deaths in nursing homes be reported to him. Annie Flynn's death was not reported to the coroner.

The hardest thing for Catherine is that Annie trusted her and John completely. She now worries constantly that, unbeknownst to themselves at the time, they let her down. She agonises that during the last six months of her life, when things were worst in Leas Cross, her mother was unable to tell her what was going on and they did not notice.

Despite numerous requests to the Health Services Executive and the minister's office in the Department of Health, and at least two official inquiries into deaths at Leas Cross, Catherine knows no more now that she did the day her mother died, about the circumstances or causes of her mother's death.

Annie's story: a woman who led a life less ordinary

WHEN Annie O'Mara was 33, the IRA shot Michael Flynn, the man she was in love with. He was a garda who happened upon a robbery at the Yellow House pub in Rathfarnham. The shootout left him with a bullet in his liver, which remained there until his death.

Annie and Michael had met two years previously in 1945 in Quin, Co Clare.

Annie was staying with her cousins on her way to a pilgrimage in Lough Derg.

She slept it out, was in the household for lunch where Michael was lodging, a chord was struck. Two days later, she received a ticket to the dance in Ennis . . .there was no name on it, but she knew it was from the big handsome guard she had met days before. She went to the dance and that was the dawn of a lifelong romance between them.

Annie O'Mara was born in 1914 in Tulla, Co Clare, the youngest and only girl of five children. Her father was a small farmer, who died suddenly when she was two. The farm was not sufficient to keep them going, so her mother Katie opened a shop. Annie went to the local convent school. As the brothers got older, they worked the farm, and when Annie was 17, she too worked in the shop and on the farm. She was mechanically minded, able to fix anything, and she loved to sew and to cook. The family rallied together, set up a farmmachinery business and managed to make ends meet.

Annie liked to socialise and went to a dance any night of the week one was on.

She was a good-looking woman with lots of local admirers, but none that took her fancy.

As the second world war spread across Europe, Annie's mother died.

Annie took over as head of the household, the farm and the shop. She and her adoring brothers worked hard to keep things going. They opened a travelling shop during the war and, as shopkeeper, Annie drove the shop around Co Clare and had to make sure she dealt out the rations equally to all their customers.

As the war ended, she met Michael and within three years, they were married. In 1948, having recovered from his injuries, Michael was posted to the Garda depot in Phoenix Park. Michael and Annie married in the church on North Circular Road surrounded by their families.

They lived in Waterloo Road for a year before buying an old red-brick house on the North Circular Road.

As money was short, the house was divided in to four flats above where they lived and took in young women as lodgers. When they first moved in to the NCR, they made wardrobes out of the window shutters.

In 1951, their only child, Catherine, was born. Annie and Michael lived a simple life; they did not drink or smoke.

Any family members passing through Dublin would come to stay, and there were always fine dinners cooked by Annie. Annie made clothes, hats, lampshades, curtains, she upholstered furniture and ran a B&B during the summer when there were no lodgers in the house. They doted on Catherine, who went to the local convent school on Stanhope Street and then to boarding school in Dundalk. Annie and Michael would visit their daughter every few weeks. Annie would roast a chicken, wrap it in tin foil, put it on a hot-water bottle and cover it in a blanket to transport it to school.

Catherine returned to live in the family home, when she went to Trinity to study science. Annie used to drag Catherine to all the auction shops along the quays, looking for bargains that she could upholster and revamp herself.

Apart from her family and dancing, the other great love in Annie's life was Fine Gael. In the early 1960s, she got involved in party politics. For the next 20 years, she would be out three or four nights a week at party meetings. She was on the national executive for a time, and was treasurer for her constituency.

If anyone wanted to be accepted as a candidate in her local constituency, they had to get Annie Flynn on side. She relished the heydays of Fine Gael when Liam Cosgrave and Garret FitzGerald were taoisigh. She grieved when Fianna Fail won back power. She reviled Charlie Haughey. Annie was a voracious reader of the Irish Independent and the Herald.

She loved to listen to the radio, to Gay Byrne, Pat Kenny, Scrap Saturday and Vincent Browne.

Although Michael was a distant cousin of Michael Collins, he was apolitical, believing strongly that gardai should stay out of politics. When Michael passed away aged 79, Annie was still going to Fine Gael meetings.