President Michael D Higgins awarded the “centenarian bounty” to 407 people who turned 100 last year, according to figures from Áras an Uachtaráin.

The award marks the celebration of an Irish person’s 100th birthday. Centenarians receive €2,540 and a signed letter of congratulations from the President. They receive a commemorative coin on each birthday afterwards. A new coin is designed each year.

The value of the bounty has remained the same since 2000 and in 2006 it was extended to Irish-born people residing abroad. Last year, 215 recipients were Irish residents and 192 lived abroad. Of the Irish residents receiving it last year, 183 were women and 32 were men.

Overseas awards

Last year’s list of centenarians is slightly shorter than the record number in 2013, when 424 people received the bounty. Of those, 247 were resident in the State and 177 lived abroad.

Áras An Uachtaráin issued commemorative coins to 626 people age 101 and older last year, 355 of whom were Irish resident.

The oldest recipient living in the State was a 109-year-old woman.

A 112-year-old Irish woman living overseas was the oldest person overall, according to Áras an Uachtaráin. It was unable to provide further information about her, but the Gerontology Research Group, which verifies and tracks the world’s “super-centenarians”, lists 112-year-old Kathleen Snavely of Syracuse, New York, as the oldest verified Irish-born person on record as of December 29th, 2014.

Super-centenarians, according to the research group, are people who are at least 110 years old.

Ms Snavely, whose birthday is next month, is believed to be the oldest living person born in what is now the Republic of Ireland. She was born in Feakle, Co Clare, on February 16th, 1902, and emigrated to the US in 1921. There she became a successful businesswoman and settled in Syracuse, where she still lives.

The Gerontology Research Group has listed 64 super-centenarians. It names the oldest living person as Misao Okawa, a 116-year-old Japanese woman whose birthday is on March 5th.