Meri Kirlić was born in 1940 in Čilipi. His father held anti-communist beliefs and he was killed in 1944 by Partisan forces, at the time of the liberation of Konavle. Meri Kirlić was then, together with her mother, grandfather and grandmother, interned in Blato on the island of Korčula, where they spent six months. They then returned to Čilipi. The ownership of half of their house was taken away from them. In 1959, after completing her schooling, Meri went to Sarajevo in search of employment. She started a family there. She returned from Sarajevo together with her daughter in 1990, just before the war, whilst her son continued living in Sarajevo. At the beginning of the war in the Dubrovnik area, she and her daughter, who was pregnant at the time, fled to Sarajevo to stay with her son. When the war broke out in Sarajevo, they went to seek refuge in Baška Voda. Following the liberation of Konavle they first returned to Dubrovnik, and later to Cavtat. Their house in Čilipi was burnt down. Her son, who stayed with his family in Sarajevo during the war, went to Canada where he still lives today. At the time of the reconstruction of Konavle she got involved in silk embroidery, an old Konavle tradition. Very soon, with the help of the Deša association, a women's production cooperative, Diklica, was formed. Today she is retired and she lives in Čilipi.