It is now 148 days since Helen died. I am off to England for a day or two to celebrate the 90th birthday of a very active lady. The question I have asked myself time and again is why. 67 is young these days, Helen had always been fit and […]
Morocco – Renewal Progressing Part two of this posting
I am at the start of my 2nd week of renewal, I find myself stronger but there is a fuzziness at the back of my head and I think that will be there for a long time. We were up early that Saturday morning and we went off to the […]
Morocco – Renewal Renewed. Part 3 of this posting
The heat, the dust, the goodness of the people, the greenery, the gris, M Ricard, the regimented chaos of Marrakech have all dragged me out of my ennui and tristesse. I am pretty much a new man. It is Day 11 of my trip and everybody is back at school […]
Morocco – A Renewal Process Part 1 of this posting
It was late April, a month after my Malta trip, I was approaching the end of the tunnel I had been in since Helen died on Christmas Day. The weather was warmer, I had met a few people. The lows of the past few months were slowly being replaced by […]
A Trip To Malta
Helen, my wife, had died on Christmas Day 2016. The late winter and early spring of 2017 were real hard days for me but by April the corona of light that signifies the end of the tunnel, the dispenser of gloom and despair was growing larger by the week. Helen […]
Helen Patricia Teresa Malpas nee Towey
She died at 5.30pm on Christmas Day 2016 in an isolated single room in the Women’s Medical Ward of Sligo Hospital. 43 years and 252 days after our “I wills” were said on St Patrick’s Day 1973. 43 years and252 days of hard work, six kids, much happiness, some sadness, […]
Death In The Family
He died on 1st October 2016 exactly 98 years and six months after he was born on 31st March 1918, 10 days after the German Spring Offensive had started on 21st March 1918 and they were hammering at the gates of Amiens demanding to be let in. Actions on that […]
St Bede’s College, Manchester. Crash, Bang, Wallop.
When the new head at St Bede’s College, Mr Richard Robson, took over in January 1915 I vowed to give him time. Time to sort things out, time to make the school recover from its lowest ebb. But I fear he took on more than he or any other aspiring […]
Father, Dear Father
Last week in accordance with the habit of the Catholic Church, my father, 98 years and four months old, received Extreme Unction or the Last Rites, his supposed last appointment before shuffling off this nonsensical life. His mother had given birth to a 2lb 2oz runt on 31st March 1918 […]
A 21st Century Comedy of Errors
The main players in this incident packed story are Dr Kathleen Finan, medical consultant at Sligo General Hospital, Dr Una Clyne, urological consultant at Sligo General Hospital and Dr Kilian Walsh, urological consultant at Galway University Hospital. There are two separate scenes, Sligo University Hospital ( now referred by SGH) […]