Born in Dublin on 12th December 1916, the only child of Martin Gerald Crotty and Isabel Mary Crotty nee McGarry.  

Ismay grew up in Dublin and began her education in her mother’s old school, Loretto College, Saint Stephens Green, then to Holy Faith Convent, Haddington Road.  She then went to Saint Joseph’s College, Bradford Yorkshire, where her mother’s sister, Sr. Gabriel Joseph OP, was on the staff.  She won a university  scholarship and went up to Oxford University, graduating in the Honours School of Modern History in 1938.  She was admitted to the School of Medicine, Trinity College, Dublin, and qualified as a doctor in 1945.  

She was House Surgeon and House Physician under Dr. Millington Synge of the Royal City of Dublin Hospital , Baggot Street and subsequently did Post Graduate Diploma courses in Public Health and Mental Diseases before finally settling into a career in Psychiatric Medicine at St. Francis’ Hospital, Haywards Heath, Sussex.Ismay was involved with Dr. Michael Strode when he founded the Handicapped Children’s Trust, and, for many years, accompanied groups on the Lourdes Pilgrimage at Easter, when he liked to call her his ‘Secret Weapon’ because of her psychiatric training.  

She continued to live in Sussex following her retirement from practice in 1979 and celebrated that event by crossing to Dublin to attend the Holy Father’s visit to Pheonix Park that year.  

Ismay had serious heart surgery at Kings Hospital in London in 1996 and subsequently retired to a rest home in Sussex where she remained under the spiritual care of her long time friend and priest, Father Rory Kelly.  Ismay expressed her wish to be buried with her beloved parents in Deans Grange Cemetery, Co. Dublin.  

It was Ismay’s stated request that donations, if desired, be offered to Fr. Rory for the St. Wilfrid’s Building Project, or any other purpose he wished.  

Ismay died on Sunday, 11th April 2010, in Eastbourne District General Hospital, East Sussex…..May She Rest in Peace.