Bartley Gerard Murtagh's Obituary
Bart died in his 86th year on January 26, 2024. He was a widower after his beloved wife of 55 years, Teresa, died in 2022. He was a proud father to four adoring children and grandfather to nine grandchildren. He will be sadly missed by them all.
Bart was born in Ireland in July of 1938 to the late Gerard and Hylda Murtagh, as the eldest of five children. As a boy, his mother used to marvel at her young son in her kitchen, running two water taps at different speeds so that he could formulate his own equations. He graduated from University College Dublin with a mechanical engineering degree at 20 years of age. He became the youngest engineer in Ireland in 1959.
He moved to the United States in 1965. He met his future wife, Teresa, in San Francisco, and convinced her not to move back to Ireland (where they were both from) and to stay in the United States, marry him, and start a family. This decision resulted in a very long dining room table decades later during the holidays. Bart and Teresa had four children and in 1974, they moved to San Mateo, California, where Bart and Teresa lived for the last 50 years.
In his early 30s, he supervised the construction of a large Fibreboard plant, and he gave up smoking and became an avid runner before it became cool. He later opened and ran his own business; he carpooled his kids; he went to their soccer games, baseball games, and music performances; he brought his family to Ireland frequently for entire summers; he put his children through school; he read hundreds of books throughout his life; and he traveled all over the globe with Teresa.
He cherished his family. He kept every card, every letter, and every picture from his family in the states and abroad. Whenever there was a family event at the Murtagh house, Bart drove 20 miles for Irish sausages, white and black pudding, and rashers. And he steadfastly stood by Teresa during her decline in 2022, taking her to every medical appointment, and then persevered the lonely days after she passed.
Bart is survived by his four children, Paul (Laura) (Studio City, CA), Gerry (Pacific Palisades, CA), Deirdre (Eric) (San Mateo, CA), and Alan (San Mateo, CA); his nine grandchildren: Joseph, Daniel, Finn, Jack, Seamus, Adam, Liam, Oliver, and Ainsley; and his sisters Rosalind Fallon (Sacramento, California) and Audrey Cremin (Dublin, Ireland), and his brothers Ronan Murtagh (Dublin, Ireland) and Gerard Murtagh (Dublin, Ireland).
Bart will be remembered for his warmth, his uncanny ability to answer any Trivial Pursuit question, and his kindness to his family and those who worked with him. He will be greatly missed. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.
Services will be held at Skylawn Memorial Park in San Mateo, California on Friday, March 1, 2024, beginning at 11:00 a.m. The service is viewable by Zoom: https://www.econdolence.com/2105k6m2. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that charitable contributions in memory of Bart be made to the American Heart Association.
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