It wasn’t a complete surprise when last Friday my mother called to say my grandma had been rushed into Limerick hospital.
At 94, her health had begun to decline after a lifetime of the most remarkable fitness.
What did come as a bit of a shock, was the speed with which she went.
Fifteen minutes after the first phone call, there was another to say she had passed.
She would have been delighted. No fuss. No bother. No drawn out illness and cognitive decline. It was exactly the sort of death she would have wanted.
I’ve been in Ireland since last Tuesday. Yesterday’s funeral saw hundreds of aunts and uncles, cousins, neighbours and friends come together to celebrate her remarkable life.
Neighbours lined the road outside her home in Corbally, Limerick.
We delivered a funeral mass she would have been proud of.
This morning the adrenaline is finally subsiding. My bones are stiff and my fingers hurt.
So, in the spirit of being unconditionally kind to myself, I’m not going to attempt to form more cohesive and meaningful thoughts from the bundle of things I’ve been thinking about.
But…
I’ve been thinking about our roots and our ancestors. The places we come from, and the generations that stand behind us. The importance of knowing our cultural stories, of maintaining the threads that connect us.
How my life-story makes more sense in the context of the generations that went before me. Trauma, addiction and mental health issues may be inter-generational. But so is an indomitable spirit, fierce ambition, a way with words, and a love of song. And soul. This family has so much god-damned soul.
It might seem obvious to some, but for years it has felt to me like my family was defined by its trauma. The relationships broken. The people who didn’t, or don’t speak to each other… I’ll leave this week with something fundamental healed. Re-established. Re-connected.
I’ve been thinking about my Irishness. My wild, Celtic heart. How a lifetime of tustling with my Englishness or patriarchy - the constant need to resist and compete with the boys - is perhaps an in-built historical legacy. A spiritual obligation.
This work of speaking truth to power, maybe stretches out behind me. Passed down through the generations.
Agitate.
Resist.
Never accept less than the more beautiful world your heart knows is possible.
My grandmother would have been horrified by all the personal transparency. But I hear my bold and entrepreneurial grandfather whispering in my ear -
Fuck em’ all he’d say. You keep going.
I’ve been thinking about the privilege of my choice and freedom. For whatever else my life may be, I am a free-woman - truly, utterly and completely independent. I get to chose the life I want to live, the people I want to live it with, the work I want to do, and the places I want to go.
My grandmother didn’t enjoy the same. Husband, father, church and state very much told her what her life would be, and she worked hard to conform to the cultural expectations of the time. She cared deeply what the neighbours might say, and whether or not we were perceived as ‘respectable.’
It is a wonder to me that she carved out her own sense of happiness and well-being. A life that was her own, in a world where she’s had no choice about the fundamentals of it’s structure.
I’m not sure that I’d have the grace and fortitude to do the same.
In the end, she found contentment and happiness in the small things.
Her cottage by the sea. Tending her garden, walking the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren, and even climbing Croagh Patrick (a big mountain) with my brother, in her 80s.
In the culture of our times, it might seem small or insignificant - a quiet life, lived mostly in service to others - but there is gold to be mined here. Lessons to be learned… A greater understanding of where my own story fits, within the grander scheme of things. Beyond the boundaries of our own lives perspective.
That’s all I have for now…
For the first time ever, I’m in Ireland for St Patrick’s Day ☘️ We are heading back to our cottage by the sea. There will be parades. There will be singing. My sobriety may be tested to the max.
I’ll be pouring out a dram, and raising a song to the last of my grandparents.
Travel well, Granny Kit x
Catherine (Kit) O’Donovan
1928-2023
Beautifully written Aine. Your Granny would be very proud. Jx
LOVE this.
A "quiet life, lived mostly in service to others" really is gold.
Almost rebellious. Certainly counter-cultural, in these noisy, cheap-glittery, look-at-me days.
But pure Irish gold just the same.