Who is Gretta Conroy from The Dead and what is their importance?

Gretta is the wife of Gabriel Conroy. Like Joyce's wife, Nora, Gretta comes from Galway, a rural region of western Ireland. She seems to love Gabriel and playfully teases him about his solicitous manner toward herself and their children. Gabriel is not, however, the first person she has loved. After hearing Bartell D'Arcy sing "The Lass of Aughrim," she is reminded of a former love, Michael Furey, who she says "died for her." According to Gretta, Michael was passionately in love with her when she was a young woman. Knowing that she was going to a convent, Michael stood outside her window at the end of the garden in the rain the night before her departure. He told her that he didn't want to live, and he died after she had been in the convent only a week.