For reasons that will probably become clearer shortly, I have recently
been attending counselling and one of the ‘tricks’ she encouraged me to follow
was to write down all the negatives in my life and then find the positives
within them and write them in a separate column. This is the result, I hope it
helps someone else, even a little bit.
January 1st 2020 began like most other New Years with the
fervent hope that we would have a good year. I was happily working away as a
pub day manager in one of Dublin’s finest establishments, change was on the
horizon as I reduced my workload there and began to focus more on my hobby,
that was now paying, lecturing on aspects of Irish history. There was so much
to look forward to. In March, I was invited on a funded trip to Washington DC
to lecture the following October and my youngest daughter was going to go with
me. In early March we sat down to plan the trip, flights, accommodation and
events including a visit to the home my sporting hero’s the Washington
Redskins. Two weeks later, some new
words were in our vocabulary Covid 19, self-isolation and lockdown. Paddy’s Day
came and went but I was suddenly feeling unwell. I just had a cold and an
irritating cough, I told myself repeatedly. It got progressively worse and two
weeks later on a bright March morning, I was being wheeled out of the house by
an ambulance crew in full PPE, much to the upset of my eighty-year-old mother.
More new words, low blood oxygen level, temperature spikes, ICU. I had
Coronavirus and I was ill, very ill.
I spent those first few agonising days in St. Vincent’s hospital, in an
out of consciousness, well aware from the constant news reporting that so many
were going into hospital and not coming out. I rang my children to reassure
them I was OK, firmly believing that it would be the last time I would hear
their voices. It was a dark time. Medical care was delivered through a glass window,
communication by phone, this was no ordinary hospital stay. After pumping me
full of drugs I turned a corner, the first real positive. As I was moved from
ICU to an isolation room, the scariest moment happened. As an orderly in a full
hazmat suit wheeled my gurney down those long plain painted hallways, a gentleman,
about twelve feet in front, blew a whistle and everyone darted out of the
hallways into doorways as I passed. ‘Unclean’ was the overriding feeling but
the need for caution overrode everything. Another ambulance ride and a transfer
to St Michaels Hospital in Dun Laoghaire was a step in the right direction. I
never knew this wonderful hospital existed. The care was outstanding. I felt
human again. The food was magnificent not least because my appetite and taste were
back. I should have put up a TripAdvisor post to signpost their wonderful
facility. Another positive as I was wheelchaired out to be collected by my
sister, the feeling of wind and a light shower on my face was truly a positive.
After two weeks, I was home, still required to self-isolate, the great
news was that despite the fact that she was the only person in the house with
me, my mother never caught the ‘bug’. The pub was closed, the university was
closed and I was the recipient of another new term ‘the Government Covid
payment’. I was now out walking every day, enjoying the fresh air and
occasional summer sunshine. I built up enough strength to for the first time
run (truthfully a fast walk) the Women’s Mini Marathon with my family to raise
funds for the Blackrock Hospice and yes, I know I’m a man but hey it’s 2020.
That was a huge milestone. Then one Sunday evening as we were conducting our
family Zoom quiz (yes, another new word in our vocabulary ‘Zoom’), I was rocked
to the core when I was told my friend Declan, a year older than me had been
found dead. He was the first person I asked to be best man at my wedding but he
turned it down simply because he hated priests. But he did enjoy the reception.
We were Rovers fans together travelling Ireland on the supporters’ bus, away
days in Bray, no match, just a pub crawl. A road trip to London to see the
first ever WWE event held this side of the Atlantic now we lined the avenue
outside Mount Jerome as the hearse passed, we all popped open a can of beer and
toasted his memory. It created a positive memory from a sad day. Funerals are a
centrepiece of grief in Ireland, cathartic, but Covid dehumanised it, robbed
the dignity of a poignant farewell, left us feeling guilty. At least the small
socially distant tribute outside for Declan was a far cry from Ronan
O’Rahilly’s funeral, a friend and fellow free radio advocate, whose coffin sat
alone in a country church with just a priest and a web link to embrace the
grief of others. It was perhaps a jolt into the reality that Covid was having
in our so called normal daily lives.
The pub briefly reopened under strict restrictions. It was OK but it was
tough dealing with idiots who thought they knew better and refused to follow
the rules. I had been forty years working in pubs and during this period and for
the very first time one afternoon, I was bitten by a drunken female customer,
who did not like being told that she was not being allowed in. Another trip to
St Vincent’s A&E for treatment, a tetanus shot and scarily, a HIV test. I
did not realise how badly that would rock me not least the mental trauma of
finding myself going back through the doors of that A&E.
On the positive side, a book I had written was published in the
strangest of times but I am very proud of it, as it brought my two loves, pubs
and history together and thanks to the publishers they found a perfect title
‘Thirst for Freedom’. It tells, for the first time, the story of the role of
pubs, bar staff and alcohol in the fight for Irish Independence.
Then the devastating news that my Uncle in New York was diagnosed with
terminal cancer. He was a fine hard-working man, a true humanitarian and he
helped me and my family so much. When our own pub suffered badly after the
financial crash, he rode in like the ‘Knight in Shining Armour’ and provided
financial help not as a loan but as a gift. The gift wasn’t to keep the pub
open but to relieve the stress of raising a young family at the time. His death
hit me like a rock and to make matters worse because of Covid, I couldn’t fly
over to pay my respects. A webcam of the mass was how we said our goodbyes,
sanitized and impersonal. When his son died in the line of duty with the NY
Fire department, I made a day trip to the big Apple to be there to say my
farewells. How times had changed so dramatically.
Surely the year could get no worse. I was sorely mistaken. After feeling
a bit below par and a visit to my doctor, I was back at Vincent’s hospital to
be diagnosed with long Covid. Once again, the huge positive here is the care,
the professionalism and the dedication of those frontline workers who have
dragged us through this swamp of pain to firmer ground. I found myself back out
to St Michaels for pulmonary rehab, the torture chamber of exercise. The
positives are that my lungs are getting better, the lack of ‘umpf’ was lifting,
I realised I wasn’t alone and the phycologist was making me write these lists
of positives and negatives.
In 1992, I married the most beautiful lady in the world. We had three
wonderful children together but as a famous Princess once pointed out, there
was someone else in the marriage. She had the cruellest disease of all, she
alas had a dependence on alcohol and it took her life. I am heartbroken, words
will not reach this page to describe that pain and even though we separated
some years ago, we never divorced. The hardest part was not being able to say a
proper goodbye and thank her for what she had done in her short but amazing forty-nine
years. She studied hard part time at Maynooth and offered her experience and knowledge
learned to help children less fortunate than ours and single mothers struggling
after giving birth. She spent hours in the cells of Pearse Street Garda station
soothing the panic of often homeless children, who had been arrested for vagrancy
and petty thefts. But her demons got the
better of her body and she slipped from this mortal earth.
The positives of that part of the story are those three wonderful strong
children. I am so proud of them, how they stuck together in difficult times,
there for each other, caring and wanting to do the right thing. They are her
legacy and she would be proud. It gave me enormous relief that all their
partners, who care for them, were there by their sides, offered support and
comfort. Now for the real positive of his tale of woe for 2020, I am the
proudest father of three gay children, yes, all three. I’m probably the only
father in Ireland that can attest to that wonderful claim. They are in great
relationships and even if they don’t last, their partners support during my
three’s mothers passing, will live long in my memory. I believe in the old
adage of live and let live but some narrow minded people have belittled me for
admitting to three gay children, their pathetic insults do little justice to
their education or background. One woman who I had got to know through a social
media app during the lockdown was very happy to converse with me for almost
three months but as soon as I revealed that my three wonderful children were
gay. She reacted with,
‘is there something wrong with you?’ and end of
conversation.
The Redskins, as a positive reinforcement of inclusivity, dropped the
name and became the Washington Football Team, slowly moving with the times and
into the playoffs. As I look at a different person in the mirror, yet it’s me,
we have all lost in 2020, personally, emotionally, financially, physically,
mentally and humanity is not the same anymore, the one important positive I
will leave you with and perhaps the reason I have put these words down, is my
tree looks the same as it did in 2019 and it will once again in 2021, the
constant that life goes on, the fight must remain and our faith in our fellow
Irishman or woman must and should stay strong.
