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Later Life and Death
In 1936 Gabriel Hayes married Seán P. Ó Riordáin, a lecturer and archaeologist in UCC. Gabriel and Sean went on to have a son and a daughter. Hayes sometimes signed her workpieces with her married name and sometimes with her maiden name, however, she is more commonly known to the public as Gabriel Hayes. Her husband, Seán Ó Riordáin fell ill in the summer of 1956, and passed away on 11 April 1957, in Dublin, at the age of 52. He was buried in the Donoughcomper cemetery in Celbridge, Kildare. Shortly after her husband passed away, Hayes received her most significant request from the Catholic Church which was to carve the Stations of the Cross for the newly built cathedral in Galway City. This was quite a challenge for Hayes but the financial offerings appealed to her because she now had two dependent teenage children to care and provide for. After her late husband’s death, Gabriel received a request to create the designs for the decimal coins (bronze) that were to be implemented as the new currency in Ireland in the year 1971.

Gabriel Hayes suffered from an injury to her collar bone in 1970 which meant she was not able to carve for a short period of time. In this time she began drawing and researching coins. Hayes designed a collection of seven medals made out of silver. When the Irish currency changed to decimal in 1971 Hayes designed the halfpenny, one penny, and two penny coins. The idea for the halfpenny came from a manuscript within the Cologne Cathedral, the penny from the Book of Kells in Trinity College, and the two pence from a Bible located in the National Library in Paris.

Gabriel won the Oireachtas gold medal award for the walnut sculpture ‘Grainne Mhaol looking towards the sea’ in 1977. Unfortunately, after her battle with a long illness, Gabriel Hayes Ó Riordáin died at St. Vincent’s nursing home, Dublin, on 28 October 1978. Hayes was buried alongside her late husband in Donoughcomper cemetery. Examples of Hayes’ work can be seen at the Holy Family secondary School in Newbridge, Kildare, and at Clongowes Wood College in Clane. A carving of Manannán Mac Lir which was made from beechwood was left unfinished at the time of her death.