Mattress Mick grieves tragic loss of wife Margaret who passed away after short illness

Furniture king Michael Flynn (70) buried Margaret on Saturday of last weekend after 40 years of a happy life together.

“She was a great support to me during the difficult years,” Mick tells the Sunday World..

“Margaret was only 63 when she died. She was originally from Ringsend.”

Margaret took ill in recent months and after initially being treated in St James’ hospital was then relocated to St Francis’s Hospice in Raheny.

“They were so good to us there, the attention they give to sick people there is incredible,” he stresses.

The couple have two daughters, Marina (37) and Michelle (27). Mick, Margaret and Marina shared their home in Clontarf, while Michelle lived with her husband and their three children elsewhere.

“The fact she (Margaret) was in hospital for the last eight weeks, we got used to the house being empty,” he reflects. “What we do miss is going to the hospital. I was going down three or four times a day. The fact she hasn’t been in the house for the last eight or nine weeks makes it a bit easier. I’m still mourning her loss.”

Mick recalls how love blossomed between the pair. “I opened a shop in Ringsend many years ago, a grocery store, and she came for an interview She managed the shop for me and then it just developed into a relationship,” he recalls.

“She enjoyed the buzz as well, she was known as Mattress Duvet (laughs).”

The couple will feature in a live show being unveiled shortly about his life, Mattress Mick the musical, which will run for two nights in Dublin’s Liberty Hall on April 27 and 28.

“She is mentioned in the musical, certainly because she is part of my story,” Mick says.

He explains the idea for the show came about when he ran into Leitrim woman Josephine McCaffrey, who is involved in a comedy troupe.

He adds there was a documentary done about him called Mattress Men about the story of Mattress Mick, and it got a Ifta award in 2017.

“So, we thought maybe a musical would be something to be looked into,” he explains.

Mick is originally from Pearse Street in the south inner city and having worked in his family’s drapery business later went into banking. But he saw an opening in the bedroom furniture business...

“I saw many years ago somebody getting off a bus with a bedside locker and I said ‘why do they have to go into town to get a locker?’, so I started introducing furniture into the shop in Pearse Street and it worked, I kept on adding on,” he recollects.

But his business empire went under after the economic crash of 2008, forcing him to liquidate his stores in 2010.

But when things recovered he set up his current business, with 10 stores around the country.

Speaking about the upcoming show, Mick says:

“Myself and Margaret had talked about it that it was going to be a big event in April and sadly it’s not going to happen in the way we would have liked.”