After a long, love-filled 96 years, Mary Ellen Brennan departed this life on April 3, 2024.

Mary Ellen "Nana" Brennan (nee Gacquin) was born to Thomas and Mary Agnes Gacquin on September 11, 1927, in Curn a Lee, County Roscommon, Republic of Ireland.

During WWII , she left Ireland to live with cousins in London and attend nursing school. In a scene straight from a Hollywood classic, she met the love of her life, Michael John Brennan, at a dance and fell in love to the tune of a slow waltz. They married in 1952 and emigrated to the United States in 1956. She worked in a nursing home before eventually starting a family in Boston, MA. After several years, she returned to Ireland to raise her family in her home county of Roscommon.

She returned to the United States in 1986 with the arrival of her first grandchildren, settling in Norfolk, VA where she would spend the rest of her life. The arrival of her grandchildren brought with it the title by which she was known far and wide: Nana. The life she led was rich with love and friendships. She was a proud member of the Irish-American Society, a Red Hat Lady, and a fiercely devout Catholic. Besides her family, she was most proud of becoming an American citizen at the tender age of 87.

To know Mary Ellen Brennan was to love her. She was passionate and charismatic, loving and engaging, so very Irish and so very American.

She is preceded in death by her husband, John, and her son, Thomas (ABH1, USN, ret.). She is survived by her children, daughter, Carolyn (Tom) Micale; son, Sean Brennan (Det., Suffolk PD, ret.); daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Allison (Thomas) Brennan; six grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

A funeral mass will be held at 10:00 AM Friday, May 3, 2024, at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Norfolk, VA.

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