Judging from the turnout at a celebration to mark the end of her 104-year life, Elizabeth “Murph” Dailey rode away with many hearts.

Murph Dailey was born Dec. 9, 1918, to Irish immigrants in California and died May 3 at the longtime residence that she and her late husband, Fred W. Dailey, built at Mokuleia. The couple arrived in Honolulu on the SS Lurline in 1952 after selling their custom-­home building business. They eventually got into the hotel business in Waikiki, where they also established the Waikiki Polo Club, which brought polo back to Kapiolani Park in the 1950s and 1960s.

The couple built a hotel, The Waikikian, which opened in 1956, along with the Tahitian Lanai restaurant. They also became major polo sponsors and hosted visiting players and teams, including Great Britain’s King Charles III, who was the Prince of Wales at the time. Friends and family report that the couple also hosted the king of Malaysia, the Marquis of Waterford, the sultan of Brunei, the maharaja of Jodhpur, the president of the Argentina Polo Association and 10-goaler Guil­lermo “Memo” Gracida Jr.

The Waikiki club was the precursor of the Hawaii Polo Club in Mokuleia, which was founded in 1963, and now is under the direction of general manager Devon Dailey, who is the grandson of the late couple, who were fine polo players in their own right.

Fred W. Dailey, who died in 1995, was inducted into the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame.

In addition to supporting the growth of polo in Hawaii, Murph Dailey was a pioneer in women’s polo. The U.S. Polo Association in 1972 put her on a shortlist of female players who were assigned a handicap.

But it was Murph Dailey’s charming personality that earned her the greatest accolades in life. Her friend Patrick Brent, who gave one of the eulogies during the celebration, recalled that Fred Dailey ran the polo club with military discipline. The men suffered through the lectures, and Brent said that “about the time that the stress got to maximum,” Murph Dailey would walk up with warm chocolate chip cookies and turn everything around.

The couple met at a wartime officers club when Fred Dailey, a brash young Army officer, interrupted her when she was on a date with another man.

At the end of WWII, they eloped in Atlanta, where Fred Dailey was recovering in a military hospital. They honeymooned in Havana and spent a few years in California before moving to Hawaii to start their family.

Murph Dailey was a kind woman, but family and friends recall that she was also incredibly sassy. “She was a great mom, a loving mom, but always with a sense of humor and a little bit of mischief — and that mischief keeps you on your toes,” her son Michael Dailey recalled.

Devon Dailey said in one of Saturday’s eulogies, “When you asked Tutu what the key to her health was, she would say it was because she was too damn healthy — which she would say between eating Cheetos and sips of Johnny Walker.”

Maybe there was something to that prescription, because Murph Daily made it through the influenza epidemic that took her brother Martin the year that she was born. She outlived the Great Depression, WWII, 9/11 and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Between hotel, polo and family duties, Devon Dailey recalled that his grandparents traveled and that his mischievous tutu was an explorer well into her senior years.

“She and my grandpa traveled all over the world from Iceland to Africa. She and my grandpa flipped a raft on some rapids at the ripe age of 70, and she was there when a rhino chased Fred into a thorn bush. Tutu would have described both events as being in deep kimchi.”

It was that adventurous spirit that also made Murph Dailey such a great athlete, moving from basketball as a teen to polo as an adult.

Devon Dailey said, “In high school she played basketball, which is surprising for a little Irish lady, but she always insisted that she was tall in her era. I imagine her as the biggest of the leprechauns shooting hoops.”

While Michael Dailey said that his mother was “always ready to go,” it was clear that all those gathered for her memorial farewell wished she had lived even longer.

Brent Daily said when he was young his grandfather died, and his grandmother comforted him by telling him that “those stars in the sky are really portholes for the people that we have lost.”

“Portholes in the Hawaiian sky are going to be there tonight, and Murph Dailey is going to be there. She’s probably riding a horse named Moki and hugging a guy named Fred Dailey,” he said. “Murph is up there, and she’s looking out for each and every one of us, all of us. Let’s make sure that we never, ever let her down.”

The celebration also included a poem read by Murph Dailey’s granddaughter Mariah Dailey Gallagher, who is vice president of the Hawaii Polo Inn, which includes the family’s current hotel holdings The Equus in Waikiki and the Chamberlin Inn, in Cody, Wyo. Gallagher honored her grandmother by wearing one of her vintage red tropical dresses.

Michael Dailey said guests were asked to wear red because it was his mother’s favorite color, and part of the Chinese Buddhist tradition of wearing red to a funeral for someone who is over 100 years in celebration of their longevity.

During an open mic, polo player Raymond Noh, president of Noh Foods of Hawaii, sang a few stanzas of “Young at Heart.” It was a bittersweet moment when he got to these lyrics: “And if you should survive to 105, look at all you’ll derive out of being alive. And here is the best part: You’ve had a head start If you are among the very young at heart.”

Some of Murph Dailey’s ashes and flowers were scattered in the ocean waters surrounding the Hawaii Polo Club field.

Murph Dailey is survived by son Michael Dailey and his wife Becca Dailey; grandson Devon Dailey, his wife Amanda Dailey and their children Ikua and Isla; and granddaughter Mariah Dailey Gallagher and her husband, Michael Gallagher, and their son, Tadhg, who came to the service from Houth, Ireland.