Ward working, determined and always cheerful: our grandmother Irene was trully a real woman of Nazaré.

The family was always main concern for grandmother Irene. She was tireless in search of better living conditions for their children. Grandmother Irene worked day and night to ensure that nothing essential lacked at home, during very difficult times at Nazaré.

As a child, the grandmother Irene became motherless and fatherless. Her mother would die after giving birth, leaving five small children to the father's care. A few years after her mother's death, Irene grandmother's father would also leave this world.

The grandmother Irene became woman. She met Joaquim da Praia: they dated, then married and shortly after they had two children. First, Lourdes, who was born in 1940 and then, almost two years after, Quico would make part of the family.

Like other authentic women of Nazaré, grandmother Irene did a bit of everything, to give a better life to her children - and later grandchildren. She sold fish and vegetables in the market and streets of Nazaré, she worked in a cannery, she was a laundress at the Rio de Longe, she raised pigs and chickens and grown vegetables in her small garden to feed the family and, also, she rented rooms to tourists.

Over her lifetime, grandmother Irene had an extraordinary inner strength and determination. But she was always smiling, always sweet, always ready to help others, even in the most difficult circumstances - and there were so many throughout her life.
We miss you dearly grandmother Irene!