Maria Devlin (31 May 1964 - 30 Mar 2022)

In loving memory of Maria Devlin who sadly passed away on 30th March 2022. Maria was born in Belfast and educated at Assumption Grammar School, Ballynahinch and Queen's University, Belfast where she graduated with distinction in 1987 with BA (Hons) in French Language and Literature after which she began a management career with C&A a leading fashion retail company in London.

Maria married Chris in 1989 and subsequently they began a family in the Hockley/ Ashingdon area of Essex, Claudia born in 1993 and Cameron born in 1999; she paused her successful career to devote the necessary time to raising them both.

In 2002 Maria started a new career in Human Resources at Olympus Keymed, originally in an administration role but then swiftly rising through the ranks to become manager of the personnel administration function. Thereafter she came top of her class in the professional membership examinations for the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.

Maria was an extremely talented and productive person who had two very successful business careers in her life but never to the disadvantage of her main vocation as wife and mother.

At a personal level, Maria was a larger than life figure with a very warm and engaging personality to whom people were closely drawn. Throughout every phase of her life Maria made many lifelong friends whether from her early life in Belfast, her gap year teaching in Belgium, her years at C&A and Olympus and indeed all the years putting down roots in Essex whilst raising the family. She was also a devotee of social media which proved very useful over the years, and over distance, to maintain connections with her wide circle of friends.

Maria was a wonderful cook for which she credits her time in Belgium. Since then Maria was always keen to experiment with new recipes and loved cooking shows on TV, all of which was of tremendous benefit to Claudia, Cameron and myself - we were absolutely spoiled and wanted for nothing.

Maria was a very talented dancer and choreographer and led the team that came second in the Northern Ireland heat of a ballroom dancing competition judged by Len Goodman in the 80s. One of her favourite songs is Abba's Dancing Queen.

Maria always took great pleasure in planning events and holidays for her family and friends. She put the utmost thought into every occasion - a birthday, a holiday, a weekend - and even our day to day lives. Through her thoughtful planning and organising, she showed us the beauty of what life had to offer, and the importance of taking the time to look for it. That is something we learnt from Maria and we must attempt to build upon as we try to recover because, right now, it is very hard to see what that looks like without her.

Maria frankly had so much energy, so many talents and abilities, such an incredible sense of humour, zest for life and love of people that it is hard to capture it all eloquently; or to necessarily recall it all, as it would often flash by a lesser mortal in a flash. However anyone who has ever met Maria will not forget Maria and, if you are not dead until all those who have ever known you, or known somebody who did, are also passed away, then Maria's spirit continues to be with us.

Maria will be forever greatly missed by her grieving family, friends and colleagues. But we can treasure the many wonderful memories from having shared our lives with her, and can hope that this will sustain us in the future.