Farewell Dad

Last Monday I woke up to a notification from the Irish Times to tell me that Limerick had just won the All-Ireland hurling championship.  My immediate instinct was to ring my Dad to discuss the final, as I have done every year since I left home 31 years ago.

Then I remembered that he wouldn’t answer because he passed away a month ago. That’s happened a lot these past few weeks. A thought pops into my head and like a sledgehammer I remember that he’s no longer with us.

Hurling was a huge part of his life. He was a proud Wexford man and brought me up on tales of Nicky Rackard’s exploits in the 1950s.  That was the golden era of Wexford Hurling and Dad was lucky enough to be in his 20’s when they won three titles in six years. He moved north to Dundalk where hurling was as rare as a Pope Francis t-shirt on the Shankill Road. So, when a hurling team was set up in my primary school, I was made the team captain on the basis of my Dad’s heritage. It certainly wasn’t on the basis of my talent.

After living abroad for eight years, I moved back to Ireland in 1996 which happened to be the year that Wexford won the All-Ireland for the first time in twenty-eight years. We went to the early rounds as a family. Mam, Dad, me and my sister Mary. Dad would make his famous cheese and coleslaw sandwiches and pack a few cans of Harp into a cool bag. We would enjoy these out of the boot of the car before the game as he had done forty years previously.

As Wexford got closer to the final, tickets became harder to source. Dad started calling in favours. He had lived in Dundalk for thirty six years by then and had more contacts than a Hollywood Agent. He somehow managed to source four tickets for every game up to the Final. But in the week before that game, he announced that he was only able to get two tickets for the big game. Wexford probably had the biggest support in Ireland and their opponents that day were Limerick. They were going through their own drought then, a drought that wouldn’t be quenched until last Sunday and they had a huge support too.

We agreed that Dad and myself would go to the game and that Mam and Mary would enjoy the picnic with us beforehand and then retire to a local hostelry. I donned my new Wexford jersey and we made our way to the old Nally Stand and as we climbed up the steps I could see a glint in his eye as though the ghosts of the 1950s were tipping their caps to him.

It was a tense game. Wexford had a man sent off in the first half but they hung on tenaciously to win a title that is still being sung about in the pubs in Dad’s home county.  When the final whistle went, I was reminded of all the tales he told me of games in the fifties when the fences would be scaled at the end and the crowd would pile onto the pitch. And so I dragged him down the steps towards the pitch against the tide of Limerick fans coming the other way. He complained bitterly that he was too old for such childish caper. But something told me that this might be my only opportunity to stand on the hallowed soil of Croke Park and led him on.

We climbed the last obstacle and suddenly found ourselves among thousands of delirious fans.  We couldn’t hear the speeches because, as I learned that day, the speakers at sporting grounds point back into the stands and not towards the field. But we did see Martin Storey lift the cup and the memory of all those childhood stories washed over me as I stood beside Dad in the September sunshine. We made our way out of the ground and back to the pub where we had left Mam and Mary. Dad was like a giddy child as he told them about our on field adventures. It seemed to be the highlight of his day.

Later that evening as we watched a replay on TV, Dad leaned across and whispered that he had actually been offered four tickets for the final. But he wanted to enjoy the game with me. The others weren’t real hurling fans. My Mother had a tendency to ask questions at crucial times of the game such as “who does the guy in black play for?”  

Dad was always there for me. He taught me how to ride a bike, he taught me how to enjoy a beer and how not to be seduced by it. He even taught me how to attract girls. “Let the hare sit” was his enigmatic advice to an over eager sixteen year old. It took me a while to appreciate that advice. You don’t catch a hare by chasing it. You catch it by staying still and to trigger the hare’s curiosity.  Then the hare will come to you.

I feel now that I have nobody left to teach me anything. Nobody to pick me up when I fall off my bike. Nobody to talk to about hurling.

He died as he lived, making as little fuss and causing as little hassle to others as possible. He slipped out of the world on the 24^th July. The same date that my Mother passed away eight years previously. He would have liked the symmetry of that and the fact that his coffin was placed on top of hers and not beside it. She was normally the kingpin in their relationship and he would find it hilarious that he will now be on top for the rest of time.

They say that hurling is the sport played in heaven. I hope so, because they have just received its greatest fan. I’ll miss you Dad. You were my hero.