Eileen H (Hayden) Kirrane

Eileen H. Kirrane died peacefully on June 25, 2023 at the age of 85. Her equanimity, love, and devotion brought out the best in people, especially her husband of 58 years, Frank Kirrane who died on January 8, 2022. Eileen is also predeceased by her sister Ann Hanson of Sudbury, Massachusetts. Eileen was raised in Watertown and Wellesley and attended Manhattanville College where she earned a degree in English. She started a career in her early 40s in corporate communications and investor relations and worked at several prominent Boston companies. She learned from her mother and taught her daughters the importance of independence and meaningful work in a woman’s life, while putting her children first. She raised her family in Sudbury and Charlotte, North Carolina. The Carolinas remained close to her heart from her time living there in the late 1970s and, later, visiting Chapel Hill and the coast. Before her illness, Eileen spent 20 years in retirement in Merrimac, MA hosting many family events in her beautiful  historic home and garden.

Eileen leaves her daughters and sons-in-law, Julie Kirrane and David Searls, of Belmont, Massachusetts, and Ellen Kirrane and Thierry Gandelheid, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  Eileen was a truly inspired grandmother and was beloved by her six teenage and young adult grandchildren: Owen, Ned and Lila Searls and Theo, Louis, and Camille Gandelheid.  

Relatives and friends are invited to attend and visit with family at the Brown and Hickey Funeral Home, 36 Trapelo Road,  Belmont, on Monday, July 10 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.  In honor of Eileen’s struggle with Alzheimer’s since 2012, please consider a donation to:  The Alzheimer’s Association 

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