Leaving Ireland Behind
Means bidding farewell to new friends and old
Most editions of Lighting the Path deal with an aspect of my family’s 2016 or 2023 journeys to the northern hemisphere; sometimes both. So please make sure to carefully note the dates of each post as you browse in order to better understand how it relates to the others.
Today’s episode returns, for the final time, to our Irish tour of 2023.
July 7 2023
Our fourth Friday of this wonderful journey was yet another moving day (in more ways than one) but, unlike its predecessors, not in the least mundane.
It started at 6am when Linda and I rose with the sparrows - ie not the Sun; he gets up well before then in these extended northern hemispherical summer days - to join our golfing buddies, Messrs Scanlon and Doolan, for a whirlwind 9 holes on the golf course that forms an integral part of this beautiful Faithlegg resort.
Early optimism about my likely performance, thanks to my better-than-expected round a couple of days ago at Killarney, and fuelled by an unexpected birdie 3 on hole number 1, was quickly, cruelly and forcefully dashed thereafter. Indeed, following a misjudged approach shot into a greenside bunker on Hole 2, it was a long (long) wait before anything resembling a reasonable score was written alongside your correspondent’s name on the group card. My tee shots - so generally reliable barely 60 hours earlier - were nothing short of appalling today. Ahh, golf.
The silver lining of the morning’s otherwise painful exertions was the fact that the creative, but clearly appropriate, scoring method adopted by our convenor, Scanlon KC, resulted in a famous and well-deserved victory in the inaugural Backroads Open being awarded to another, closely related, Cordner; ie Mrs L.G. You bloody beauty.
The middle third of the day was occupied with somewhat less energetic activities - initially the bus ride from Waterford to Dublin, followed by a much-needed visit to a nearby laundromat in order to replenish our supply of clean duds. In between we bid fond farewells to the rest of the touring party; an eclectic bunch, yet with all of them we seem to have achieved a quite unanticipated level of warm and genuine friendship.
The day’s final third proved a hoot and a half as we caught up with a couple of young friends who happened to be in this part of the world at the same time as we, and who were thankfully happy enough to share a bevvy, or two, and a hearty meal, with a couple of old coots. That couple, Bill and Paige [who have more recently become engaged to be married in April 2026], are both part of an extraordinary support network that emerged for our family during the early part of 2019, following the tragic accidental death of our younger son, Ben. Known endearingly as a Bunch of Smartarses, this group, comprising two of Ben’s oldest and closest friends (Bill & Michael), and their families, let us know in no uncertain terms from a very early stage that we would never need to deal with Ben’s loss on our own. Their company had always been a safe space for us all, but never moreso than in the months and years following the darkest period of our lives - a space for unapologetic tears and warm hugs, for nostalgic tales and unself-conscious laughter, for honesty, for love, and for unashamed admiration of the enigmatic and unforgettable Ben. Our gratitude for the loyalty and support extended by the Smartarses knows no bounds.
The surprise highlight of the evening however was the appearance, just before dinner time, in the colourful and convivial surrounds of Dublin’s Temple Bar district, of a man once known by hurling fans in these parts as Little Johnny White, but who was known to residents of the suburb of Denistone East in Sydney, where we lived with our boys for a dozen or so years either side of the turn of the millennium, simply as our friendly Irish neighbour, John.
A decade or so ago John and his son (Sean), along with Bill and his Dad (Mike), Ben and I, and a bunch of other willing guinea pigs, were members of a father-and-son cricket team who signed up to play a season or two together in a suburban competition in Sydney’s north-west. John had never played cricket in his life before, so it was a measure of his natural sporting talent and adaptability that, at an age of near enough to 50, he was able to accumulate exactly the same number of runs by season’s end (and at the very same average per innings) as Sean. We don’t have many, if any, formal rites of passage for our young men here in Australia; but I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more beneficial one (for young and old men alike) than a season of cricket played shoulder to shoulder in a senior competition, with plenty of good humour and respect, but no quarter asked, and absolutely none given to the youngest amongst us.
Quite apart from our long history of knowing and appreciating one another, both as neighbours and teammates, there is also now an even stronger element to the bond we share with John. At the time we lost Ben, John’s wife (Claudia), and indeed the whole White family, were dealing with Claudia’s recent diagnosis as a victim of the insidious Motor Neurone Disease; a condition that would take her life in the middle of 2020.
Is it harder to have someone you love snatched in an unexpected instant, or to watch that precious life ebb away over a period of months and years, day by painful day? There is no simple answer to that question. Neither is there a straightforward path through the minefield that profound grief and loss present to even the strongest amongst us. But if we can Light that Path for one another - with friendship and empathy, with shared memories and care, and by just being there for each other as we contemplate the reality that there is no solution to our greatest problem, then just maybe we can find a way to navigate the Unimagined Future
Together
