Skip to content
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Menu
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Happy News

What This Great-Grandmother Did At 90 Proves It’s Never Too Late

Maryette McFarland from Londonderry became the oldest of more than 300 graduates at the Open University’s ceremony in Belfast on Tuesday, finally earning her English Literature degree at age 90 after a 70-year journey that began in Dublin back in the 1960s. The great-grandmother had originally started her studies at Trinity Dublin but dropped out when love intervened, choosing to get married instead and later raising four children while her degree remained an unfinished dream she never stopped regretting. After recovering from a car accident years later, McFarland decided she had a bit of time to spare and wanted to do something meaningful, so she enrolled with the Open University to finally complete what she started seven decades earlier. Despite admitting she’s “very bad online,” McFarland received wonderful support from her family including four children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, with her daughter-in-law even teaching her how to type so she could manage the online coursework.

Her eldest daughter Shauna Gailey accompanied her mother to the graduation ceremony and said she’s incredibly proud, describing how McFarland used to sit on her sofa surrounded by piles of books with her laptop and tablet in front of her, throwing herself fully into her studies. The entire family came to Belfast for a big family lunch before watching Maryette walk across the stage, celebrating not just a degree but a testament to determination and patience that spanned most of her lifetime. McFarland’s lovely tutor provided tremendous support throughout her journey, helping her navigate the challenges of studying in a digital age when technology wasn’t her strongest skill. Her message to anyone who thinks they’re too old to learn new things is simple and powerful: if she can do it, anybody can do it, because it’s never too late to achieve your dreams no matter how much time has passed.

PrevPreviousThis MUSHROOM-Powered Toilet Changes Everything
NextThe MIT Researcher Saving Agriculture From ItselfNext

Recent Articles

Happy News

Scientists May Have Finally “Seen” Dark Matter

May 9, 2026

For nearly a century, dark matter has been one of the greatest mysteries in all of science. We know it exists as it makes up an estimated 85% of the universe’s total mass and acts as invisible gravitational scaffolding holding galaxies together, but no one has ever directly observed it.

Read More
Happy News

Coral Reefs Are Hiding An Almost Entirely Unstudied Universe Of Potential Medicine

May 9, 2026

Scientists at the University of Galway and an international consortium have discovered that coral reefs contain an almost entirely unstudied universe of microbial life, publishing a study in Nature that reconstructed the genomes of 645 microbial species from 99 coral reefs across 32 Pacific islands, with more than 99 percent

Read More
Happy News

A Rare Superbloom Is Turning Part Of Redwood National Park Purple And There Are Only Weeks To See It

May 9, 2026

Something extraordinary and fleeting is happening right now in Northern California, where the Bald Hills grasslands above the redwood canopy in Redwood National Park have erupted into a rare lupine superbloom, turning a stretch of elevated landscape off a remote road near Orick into a sweeping sea of purple, blue,

Read More
« Previous Next »
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2026 HappyNews.