Holding Hands in the Countryside

It’s a while now since my piece on online dating was featured in The Irish Examiner. My initial chuffed-ness at getting published soon gave way to panic about what people would think of me. I remind myself that I am doing nothing wrong, that online dating is normal in today’s society and that it’s what all the singletons (and some of the not so singles) are doing these days.

I worry what my mother will think about her darling daughter writing about online dating. I needn’t have. She is pleased that I got published, thinks that I look lovely in the photos - real Irish mammy stuff. She has been speaking with my aunt, her sister. They are claiming my writing ability for the maternal side of my family, tracing it back to our blood line that includes Brendan Behan and Peadar Kearney, who wrote the National Anthem. My aunt tells me that she laughed so much, that, in her own words, ‘the tears ran down her legs’. Yes, there is a boldness in my family.

Commentators compare me to the character Carrie Bradshaw in ‘Sex and The City’, writing about her relationship dramas and cried out for more. Obviously there’s many difference between myself and Carrie. Carrie is a TV character, as are her dates. My prospective dates are real life people with feelings and I have a public profile that I need to protect. Anything I write about it will be a sanitised version of the truth. Anyway, being Irish and born Catholic, my version would be less about fornication and more ‘Holding Hands in the Country'. I covet Carrie’s wardrobe and watch her on TV, writing on a keypad, alone, steaming cuppa in hand, sitting at a window overlooking Manhattan. Meanwhile, I catch moments to write here and there, often late at night, begging the nocturnal nine year old to go to bed.

An unexpected consequence to getting the article published was that guys who read the article found me through social media and asked me out. Bright fellas who read broadsheet newspapers, including Playing Hard to Get. There’s messages to-ing and fro-ing from Playing Hard to Get, who is in touch every day, but says very little. He doesn’t make any effort to compliment or otherwise woo me. He tells me that he ’doesn’t give a fuck’ about my writing. He is dark, handsome and totally and utterly irresistible. After our date, Playing Hard to Get disappears without trace and doesn't contact me again, not even to say that he isn’t interested. I torture myself checking to see when he is online, knowing that he has read my messages. The last time I felt this hurt was in secondary school when the guy I fancied for years changed schools at short notice. I had no way of contacting him and felt like my teenaged heart was torn out, never to recover.

i decide to rename Playing Hard to Get as 'Feckin' Fecker'. I’ve broken my promise to Feckin’ Fecker that I wouldn’t write about him, but I feel that when he went AWOL, that the gloves were off.

The Banker has read the article too. I had chickened out of a date with him a few months ago. We decide to meet. He suggests somewhere close to where he lives. I get lost while driving and am in a flap by the time I get to the hotel where we are meeting. I expect him to be standing outside waiting on me, but he’s at the bar drinking and it looks like he has had a bit of Dutch Courage already. Turns out that this place is his local. After a pleasant lunch, I leave. He doesn’t walk me to the door. He’s ordered another pint. There's no kiss goodbye, like there was no kiss hello. He says that ‘next time’ we will meet closer to where I live, but we both know that there won’t be a second meeting. I realise that old fashioned chivalry is more important to me that I thought.

I chat to Super Sleuth online. After some time, he sends me a message saying that he knows that I have an illness. He feels that I have been dishonest in not telling him. Truth is, the fact that I have MS just didn’t come up in conversation. I feel so well these days that I don’t feel like I have an ‘illness’, but rather a ‘medical condition’. I feel at pains to tell him how fit, healthy and energetic I am and he says its fine. But in my heart, I wonder if it really a big deal for him, or other potential suitors, who with a quick Google search will know of my diagnosis. I curse the fact that I have MS, and the fact that I have been open about it, written about it and but also feel a sense of gloom that for some guy, it might just be a deal breaker.

The Elected Representative seems keen to meet, but doesn't confirm arrangements with me, leaving me unsure if I should make alternative plans. Eventually he texts me, inviting me to lunch. I text back saying, 'you are as interested in me as you are in potholes in Mayo'. 'I'm not from Mayo', he says. 'Exactly', sez I.

In the middle of it all, I meet ‘Maybe in Meath’, who is actually from Dublin. He is one of the nicest men I have ever met. Handsome, thoughtful, intuitive, kind, funny. Maybe in Meath soon becomes The Date. We have the loveliest of times. Maybe it's all too much too soon. In my heart though, the va-va-voom just isn’t there for me and we part company. He is so nice that he makes breaking up really easy for me. The gal who falls for The Date will be a lucky one indeed. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking.

PS Feckin' Fecker, if you accidentally read this, you still have my number

The Date

I was feeling a bit fragile in the run up to the August Bank Holiday weekend this year- My recently deceased father’s birthday and the Blessing of the Graves.  On the Saturday, as I leave to travel home for the weekend, I got an-out-of-the-blue text message from The Architect. 

‘Can we talk?’ 

I panic, assuming it’s an arts emergency, probably related to concrete foundations. 

‘Yes, what’s up?’

‘I think you're lovely’, beeps the reply.

I’m simultaneously relieved that the concrete has set and feel slightly queasy at the unexpected content of the message from someone I have known for a very long time.

A few more messages back and forth and he has asked me out on a date.  To a really nice restaurant with fabulous vegetarian food, that Bank Holiday Monday.  I’m in shock.  On mature reflection though, I think, ‘Why the hell not?’  We are two free agents; we get on well and can talk about the setting time for concrete, if nothing else.  I get excited at the idea of getting dressed up and going out somewhere, anywhere grown up, without two children in tow. 

I don’t hear from The Architect the following day, or on the Monday.  

I sit in by myself on the Bank Holiday Monday, half watching rubbish TV, nursing a very bruised ego.

The Architect sends me a sheepish message a few days later apologising, admitting that he had had ‘Dutch courage’ when he contacted me, and signs off saying, ‘I still think you're nice’.  And then nothing.

I dust myself off and hope that we don’t have an arts emergency anytime soon.

My luck doesn’t improve when I impulsively decide to try my hand at online dating.  Sure isn’t everyone at it?

Finance Guy seems keen until I try to confirm a specific time and location to meet him.  He phaffs around so much that I decide to do him a favour and call off the date.  I don’t hear from him again.

Lots of guys say an online ‘How’ya’, but don’t actually get beyond that.  I loose patience, and confidence, very quickly.

Just as I am about to give up hope with the online thing, I can see that someone, who looks half decent, is looking at my profile.  But he hasn’t actually contacted me.  I send him a message.  He tells me that he thinks I may be ‘too refined’ for him.  I relay this to my work colleagues later, who almost fall off their chairs laughing at the possibility of me being polished.  

We chat.  He is relieved to hear me curse (only for effect though, I’ll have you know).  Notions of my possible refinedness are soon dismissed.  We arrange to meet.  In Hollywood.  Sure, where else would you have a date? 

The idea of a meeting The Date gives me a pep in my step.  I have a strange urge that I haven’t felt in a long, long time.  Yes, a desire to clean my house.  Soon I am cleaning windows to beat the band. I also have the inclination to take out my sketch books and to start painting again too.

A few days before we meet, The Date falls and breaks a bone in his foot.  We postpone Hollywood and arrange a lunchtime date, somewhere convenient for a Dub with a ski boot and crutches.

In the middle of it all comes unforseen news.   My long standing American boyfriend, Brad Pitt has just announced that he single again.  I don’t know what that means for me/us long term.  I had such high hopes for Brad and I, him being so good with clatters of children and all.  My two would be a walk in the park for him.  But it may take Brad a while to extract himself from his missus, so for now I’ll focus on The Date.

The day that I am due to meet The Date is the day when Today FM Radio is encouraging their female listeners to wear their wedding dresses to work, as part of the station’s ‘Dare to Care’ fundraising project for the Irish Cancer Society.  I wonder if The Date would think I was jumping the gun if I wore mine to meet him.  I decide against. 

I’ll taking a half-day from work to meet him and I really wish I had paid more attention to those office-to-evening fashion features in the glossy magazines.  I text The Date that morning, saying that I am running late, such was the dilemma of what to wear.  He text me back saying that he was wearing a tracksuit.  I’m sitting at my office desk in my carefully accessorised baby pink Karen Millen silk dress and he is wearing flannel.  I think I might cry.  Over a piece of synthetic fabric.  Or in my mind, the message that his effort level was ‘ZERO’. 

He redeems himself, explaining, very reasonably, that the trackie bottoms are convenient for his appointment with his osteopath and that he would change his clothes before we meet.

And there he is, spruced up, sporting a protective boot that wouldn’t look out of place in Star Wars. The music in the pub is too loud.  The music in the restaurant that we go to is blaring too.  I wonder if all of the natives were deafened from shouting during the recent All Ireland final, or if it’s just me.  The waitress brings me a meaty pizza and doesn’t apologise that she got it wrong.   The Date’s Star Wars boot looks cumbersome and awkward, but he doesn’t complain.

The Date looks different in real life, more three dimensional.  Obviously.  And handsome.  We have nothing in common and everything in common.  He tells me that he likes my freckles.  I blush and suddenly feel self-aware, like I did as a child when an adult would bend down to me and ask me, in a kind voice, ‘Where did you get those big brown eyes?’ 

Four hours later and it’s gone in a flash.  I have to go. 

Later, I look in the mirror and observe that indeed, my face is scattered with little brown speckles, probably recently enhanced by a sunny weeks holiday in Wexford.  I stand there and watch this stranger in the mirror and realise that it’s been a long, long time since I really looked at myself. 

Another date?  

It would a shame to quit while I’m ahead, wouldn’t it ?

Frazzled Momma Prepares for Birthday Party

Frazzled working momma has one of her worryingly frequent 'moments' a month ago and thinks that a double 9th birthday party for twinnies at home, in October, is a good idea. FWM resorts to grass cutting with a post-christening hangover and to washing windows in the dark, because let's face it, they are the type of things 9 year old guests remember. She hopes they notice the freshly cleaned drains too and that the tomato sauce on the penne pasta is home made.

Thoughtful friend offers to drop his uber funky caravan into garden to up the party cool stakes.

FWM forgets that she promised to make birthday cake with children and settles for two slabs of chocolate something or other from LidlDaLDI.

She vows never to allow herself be distracted again, chatting to an old friend in Dealz, while the children stock up on SEVENTY FIVE FLIPPING EURO worth of shite, including cheap and nasty chocolate that will ruins any goodness acquired in the home made tomato sauce.

FWM wonders where the hell the magician is going to fit in the Hobbit House, with a capacity audience. She hopes that he isn't cutting a woman in half.

She spends the week dusting and cleaning and replacing real cobwebs with synthetic ones. The children are beyond excited, lie on the floor in the path of the woman with a mop, refuse to sleep before 11pm any night for a week and are like divils to FWM, who tries not to take it personally.

She concedes that she won't get all of the cleaning done after all and will, instead, draw the blinds on the bedroom windows (bloody bungalow) and shove stuff into drawers.

Have the kids revised for their 'really, really' important test in school tomorrow? Hell, no. Outfits sorted for Fancy Dress Day on Friday? As if ...... And of course there's no wine. She'll settle for a chocolate eyeball from a party bag, as she cries into her cold tea and types on her keyboard, avoiding floors to be washed so that children can trample wet grass into it tomorrow...

My Da and Anthony Foley

The date of my father’s death is October 19th 2015 and so, his first anniversary takes place this Wednesday.  But for me, my Dad died on a Monday, so today is his anniversary.  The day after the annual Kildare Readers Festival closes. I took a day’s leave from work today, partly because I'm tired after a marathon few days, but mostly because I don't fancy the déjà vu of being there at 11am for tea break as I was last year when I got the phone call from my brother Eoin.

The day before my father died, he watched Ireland's Rugby World Cup quarter-final against Argentina at the Millennium Stadium.  He would have been glued to the TV, with the Sunday newspapers spread across the table in front of him, providing a running commentary to my mother throughout the match.  

If he was still alive, he would have looked forward to Munster playing in the European Champions Cup match against Racing 92 yesterday.  The match was cancelled, as a mark of respect after the sudden death of Head Coach for Munster, Anthony Foley.  I only heard about his death this morning, aged 42, the same age as me.  Like many, I felt that collective sense of grief that someone really special was gone.  A true sports man and leader.  My father had little in common with Anthony Foley, except perhaps that they both put themselves under pressure and that they exited this world quickly and quietly.  

I have wondered how aware my father was in his final moments.  What could he hear? The lads hammering and the clink of machinery in the shed in the yard, Radio One wafting up the stairs in the kitchen, my mother calling to ask him to hurry up, the kerfuffle  that followed as family and paramedics arrived?  In my mind, the sound of the calming flow of the river across the road, the sound that he would have woken to and fallen asleep to, almost every day of his life, intensified and amplified to become his closing track.  This morning, watching a video online of Munster Fans singing ‘The Fields of Athenry’ in Paris as a tribute to Anthony Foley, I cried for the big Munster man, for the older men in the video, visibly upset wiping away their tears and also for my Da, who often sang that tune, and who, unlike his daughter, could hold a tune. 

While Anthony Foley was famous in his circles, my father was more of the infamous kind, being stubborn and opinionated.  I don’t know what he would have thought about all I have written about him on my blog since his death.  It's likely that he would have told me off, saying that there was ‘no need to be talking about those things’.  But if I explained the map of analytics showing the number of people who had read about him, and where in the world they are, he would have been amused.  ‘Be the hokey’, he'd say.  He then would have tried, badly, to explain Google analytics to his friends in the pub.  ‘They are reading about me in Russia and Australia, you know.  Jaysus’, shaking his head and laughing, secretly chuffed. 

Writing about my father has given me comfort in processing his death.  Others have told me that it has made them think about their own fathers, 'men of that generation', who won’t be around much longer, men that seem simple in their ways but are as complex as anyone else.  I chat with my uncle Ciaran  about how neither of us expected to really miss my father, a man who didn’t always have a lot to say to either of us.  Ciaran tells me that he sometimes walks around the farmyard, just to remember his brother.  It’s always the little things.  Today I miss being in his presence, him ignoring me while watching his beloved rugby.

. 

The Mutt With The Butt

Coming from a farming home, I was used to big, shaggy dogs, usually mongrels or dolly mixture collies.  Their purpose in life was in the first instance, to herd sheep.  But I always thought of them as pets.  At one stage, we had a pet lamb called Tubby, who thought he was a dog and no one ever felt the need to set him straight (I have written about Tubby in a previous blog post.  His bloody demise is the reason I became vegetarian).  I was never fond of Jack Russell terriers that occasionally stray onto the farm and found their nippy, wicked temperament hard to accept when I was used to gentle giants who loved me unconditionally.

After that, the only dealings I had with Jack Russell’s was in relation to my surname.  My brother Derek was christened ‘Jack’ in his early days in secondary school.  When I followed him a year later, I was sometimes called ‘Jacqueline’.  What a witty bunch my fellow students were.   Although it’s now over two decades since we finished school, I expect that my brother would still lift his head if he heard someone called out ‘Jack’ on the street.

In early September, a Jack Russell dog appeared at my back door.  I assumed he was a neighbour’s dog out wandering.  The following day, he was still there.   As my daughter pointed out ‘he has a sore butt’.  I was keen to get him home as soon as possible, took his photo, posted it on Facebook and tagged all of my neighbours.  I assumed a speedy response identifying the owner, but no one came forward.  Some days later, I brought him to the local vet to see if the mutt (by now named Charlie by my son) was micro chipped.  He wasn’t. 

At this stage, panic started to kick in.  Charlie had started to take over my house.  He had evicted my humongous Labrador Hudson from his comfortable bed.  I was surprised that Hudson allowed it, as he is so big that he could have easily smothered him if he sat on him.  Instead, Hudson looked at me forlornly, not able to hold back his hurt.  The only time that Hudson stood up for himself was mealtime.  There was no way a greedy Lab would share. 

Feeding time at the zoo really became an issue - Charlie also started to upset my two half wild cats, Spooky and Sparky, belting out the back door between my legs when I attempted to feed them.  On one occasion, he dived on one of the cats and grabbed her viciously by the neck, witnessed by my hysterical daughter.  Thankfully Sparky is also spunky and escaped.  After that attack, my daughter decided that she didn’t really like Charlie anymore and stopped walking him around on a lead.  In the meantime, Hudson became a sulky teenager and spent most of his time in my bedroom. 

The only time there was a ceasefire was when I brought them both for a walk.   I only walked so far to avoid my neighbour who began to complain about ‘YOUR Jack Russell’ potentially leading her dog astray.  I had explained to her that Charlie wasn’t mine, despite the fact I was now regularly pounding the tarmacadam with him on a lead. 

Regular telephone messages and emails to the local Animal Rescue centre were not returned (I’m not complaining – I know they are extremely busy).  Charlie’s butt wasn’t getting any better and his bum vapour was like agitated slurry (townies, you may need to Google this to understand).  The end of my tether was getting closer and I knew that I couldn’t keep Charlie beyond last weekend.  Trouble was, for all his faults, I was getting attached to the little critter.  I made one last post on Facebook to see if I could find a home for him, before I contacted the dog pound, which mostly likely, would lead to a death sentence for Charlie in the following week. 

In what seemed like a miracle, a friend of a friend contacted me almost immediately.  ‘Does he had a sore backside?’, she asked.  I could hear the ‘Hallelujah’ music coming on in my head.  It appears that Charlie (I won’t reveal his real name, to protect the stinky) is a bit of an escape artist whose family were looking for him. 

The following day, Charlie was collected, with a huge sigh of relief for all concerned.

Hudson’s delicate ego is recovering.  He is sprawled out in his basket as I type.  I treated him to a road trip to Clonakilty and a walk on the beach there (thanks Marie and Andrew) to reaffirm that he was the only mutt for me.  

The cats have regained their laid back ‘‘we don’t give a monkeys about you ‘tude’’.  The equilibrium has been restored in Poppy Cottage. 

Til the next drama ….

Desperate in Delvin

I bit the bullet.  I’m blaming my male cousins and brothers.  ‘Sure, you are still lovely Lucy.  Fellas would fancy you, especially now that you have learned how to plough a field’.  They give me tips for internet dating.  I’m horrified, ‘still lovely’.  They mean well, but I feel like an ageing horse, getting my teeth checked, to see if there is any life left in the old nag.  So before I declare myself fit for pasture, I did it.  I signed up for internet dating, on a whim, early one Sunday morning, after another weekend on my own with my mutt.   

But what to share? Oh gawd, the template is looking for a photograph.  Maybe I should upload a pic of my dog.  He’s better looking than me and it would show what an animal lover I am.  It’s times like this that a burka seems like an attractive form of dress.  I opt for a discreet photo, instagrammed to death. 

Then there is the small matter of my name.  With a name like Lucina, there isn’t much hiding.  Adding a simple ‘d’ could give me a disguise.  I opt for honesty. 

Then the much dreaded questionnaire - likes, dislikes, inspirations, the ‘tell us about you’ and ‘what you are looking for’.  I feel like giving up there and then and resigning myself to old age, with just me and my mutt.

A few credit card details later and I’m live.  Within minutes, I swear, minutes, guys send messages saying that they want to meet me.  All before 8.30am on a Sunday. I marvel at the wonder of technology.  I have almost planned my outfits and picked my restaurants.

The novelty doesn’t last long.  Desperate in Delvin*, 62 sends me a virtual wink and another.  And a few days later, another.

Kinky in Kinnegad, 72, sends me a message saying that he thinks I’m sexy.  I’d like to send him a virtual slap of a hangbag, but there isn’t such an icon.

Gorgeous in Galway, 31, is actually gorgeous and I wonder why the hell he is internet dating and more to the point, why he is looking at my profile.  I find it hard to believe that his intentions are honourable.

There’s lots of faceless men out there, like Unhappily Married in Urlingford, 38 who don’t upload photos and seen pushy about chatting, as if this opportunity is what I’ve waited all of my life for. 

The Teacher in Thurles, 37, also faceless, writes 'your lovely'. I reply, stating 'for a teacher, your spelling isn't the best'.  He doesn't know what I'm on about.  'You're', I prompt. We mutually agree to 'leave it'.

Ego in Ennis, 51, another of the faceless crew, insists that he has provided plenty of information about himself on his profile and that if I had read it properly, I would 'clearly see' that he would provide photos by email. Out of curiosity, I ask for pics, which he emails.  He has Donald Trump hair to match the inflated sense of himself presented in his profile.

Dapper in Dublin, 39, looks promising, but then says that we live too far away from each other for a date.  I try not to sound desperate and resist asking him to check the route on AA Routeplanner, like I already have.

Other fellas probably really should have taken a bit of advice on how to take selfies for the purposes of actually getting a date.  A lot of photos make them look like they came straight from Crimeline, with photos taken directly from their PC, showing double/treble chins off to their finest.  And do they not realise that I can see their socks and jocks on the radiator behind them?    

The questionnaires that the guys have completed start to bore me to death.  Who actually gives a monkey’s what their favourite meal is (but, FYI, a large proportion of men seem to prefer their mothers cooking, which is all well and good, but this isn’t a site for a replacement Irish Mammy)

Then there’s the guys who use way !!!!! too many !!!!! exclamation !!! marks !!!! to show what a fun !!!! guys they are !!!!  So, flipping !!!!!! hilarious !!!!

And don’t get me started on the guys WHO USE BLOCK CAPITALS.  It’s as hilarious as the exclamation marks, but IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING AT ME.

Or the ones that use text speak.  No, I don’t want 2 talk 2 U LOL ‘K?

And then there’s the LOL’s and ‘LMAO’, when it’s-just-not-funny. 

There are lots of lovely, genuine guys out there in cyber love land.  Some send lovely messages and mostly I send nice messages back, wishing them well, but saying that I’m not interested.  Some send messages back saying that mine was the nicest rejection they ever received.  They don’t know that I have had years of experience turning down people, as gently as I can, for grant applications.

I won’t be renewing my membership when it expires this week.  I’ll dust myself off and regroup.  But in the meantime, Maybe in Meath, 45 isn’t looking half bad.

*Names have been changed to protect the deluded

The Blessing of the Graves

My father was always a man in a hurry.  He was in such a hurry at his 70th birthday celebrations in a restaurant last year, that he blew out the candles on his cake and had actually left the establishment while I was in the toilets with the children.  In his defense, with the squirty soap, hand dryer, and various contraptions to be examined, the toilet trip took longer than expected.  And there was an 'urgent' football match on TV at 2pm, so urgent that it was close to an emergency.  The family joked afterwards that we would spoon fed him in a chair for his 80th birthday.  But that wasn't to be, as John Russell departed this life 6 weeks after he blew out his candles.  No messing around.

Today is his birthday and I stood at his graveside over the weekend, at the annual Blessing of the Graves in Kingscourt.  Surreal indeed.

I've come to the conclusion that the ideal place for speed-catch-up with family, school friends, people you half-knew but didn't realise you how you knew them and neighbours is actually The Blessing of the Graves.  Don't knock it unless you have tried it.  And let's face it, the financial donation is cheaper than buying a round in the pub and there's less drunks.

There is a predictability to who will stand where, given the static positioning of the various family graves.  Family representation varies over the years.  New additions to the families appear and others take their rest under the soil.  Children play in the chippings and compost on the graves.  Older people rest in their fold up chairs.  There is mighty fashion to be seen and the grey headstones are outnumbered by floral arrangements.

As it happens, it's also a great place to meet people who read my blog (Who Knew ?? Like, seriously ? It's slightly mortifying, but also kinda lovely).  I meet someone who I only know through social media. We hug and I laugh that until now, I had no idea of what height she is, having only encountered her through postage stamps sized photographs on a screen.

All the fretting about being there had passed.  It oddly, feels nice.

The reality of the situation hit home when the priest, in his opening remarks acknowledges all of those who were standing beside a loved ones grave for the first time.  Thankfully he doesn't dwell on it, but I feel a pain in my heart for my lovely mother standing there.  She looks so vulnerable. Hopefully next year won't be so hard.  The first is the worst, or so they say.

I came across this photograph the other day. It's my parents, my brother Derek (with THAT haircut) and little me at the seaside in Port, Co Louth.  The sea is just over the horizon.  Can you smell it ?  I can hear it.  Whoosh .... It feels like I remember that actual day, but I wonder if that's possible as I am so young.  We went to Port every summer, so maybe it's collective memories remembered through that photograph?  The bumpy texture of the seer-sucker thin cotton dress is so familiar, as is the salt water in my mouth, as my father splashes water at me in the sea, the taste lingering long after the event.  The odd sensation of feeling rough sand sprinkled through the cool, slinky grass.  The safe feeling of the weathered palm of his farmer hand against my leg.  I keep the dress for years for a teddy.  Maybe that's why I remember?

I attended a dance performance by Theogene (Totto) Niwenshuti, a Rwandan dancer and scholar, in Maynooth University last week, as part of Kildare County Council's Dance and Movement Summer School.  Totto has survived genocide.  The audience, were led into the performance across scattered clothes, shoes and a number of people lying still on the floor.  They lay in the same direction, face down, as if they had been shot dead while running for their lives.  Individually and collectively, we sobbed quietly for massacred men, women and children and how helpless we all felt, at this scenario and the countless similar scenes worldwide.

Afterwards, an image of my fathers boots paired up the back hall way when I arrived home on the day he died, keeps coming to me.  I think about the absolute privilege that he had of dying peacefully in his own house, surrounded by family and the privilege we had in giving him a funeral that he would have approved of.

It's unlikely that my father's boots will be worn again.  My three brothers grew to be much taller than my father, so much so that my brother Eoin handed down his pair of size 8 tan leather confirmation brogues to him.  It was the source of much amusement at the time, but JR didn't take kindly to being slagged about that.  He would be raging that I told ye.  Sorry Da.  The memories keep you close.