MEET THE COUPLES WHO PROVE IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO GET MARRIED
Getting married isn’t just the preserve of younger folk, as these three NI couples tell Leona O’Neill
Colm Flanagan (68), a sound consultant originally from Ballywalter and his wife, retired Church of Ireland vicar Mercia (65), live in Bangor. They married, both for the first time, two years ago. Mercia says that she had given up on finding love until her future husband came into her life.
“I have an interest in CS Lewis and had done a sabbatical project at Lewis’ home in Oxford in 2012,” she says. “I ended up doing a project on his relationship with Tolkien and how that challenged the sectarianism he had been brought up with in Belfast. I was asked to do lots of little talks around the country and Colm heard one of these talks.
“He was doing some work with Premier Christian Radio, doing interviews with a Northern Ireland slant. He thought that I might make a good piece to do. He tracked down my number and came to interview me. We just clicked from that day.
“Normally the interviews take about an hour. But we spent five hours together that day.
“We took it a bit slowly at first, because we had both been hurt in the past. But then when we decided that there might be something in this, everything went very fast indeed.
“We started going out properly in February 2017, got engaged in May and were married in September.”
Mercia, who was vicar at Carnmoney and Ballyholme Parish churches before retiring, says that Colm shocked all their friends with a romantic proposal.
“We had talked about getting married,” she says. “Getting married was a huge change and would mean major upheaval in both of our lives. At that stage in life you wonder if it is really worth it. But we just wanted to be together, we enjoyed each other’s company immensely. We had been talking about what the future might look like.
“I had a house up on the north coast and I used to go there on my day off. So he drove me up one day. I had planned to go to lunch at a particular place and he drove past it. I wondered why. He took me to a viewpoint, up Bishop’s Road, which looks across to the Scottish islands.
“It was an amazing view and was quite chilly, but he proposed there. It was beautiful. And driving back down he played me the Moody Blues song Heaven on Earth with the lyrics ‘It’s heaven on earth when you’re close to me’, and I was just in bits. He astonished all his friends because nobody thought he would have that in him. But he does.”
Mercia says that at her age she had all but given up on finding love.
“I got married at 63 years old,” she says. “I never expected to find ‘the one’ then. I had not ruled it out, but I think I had got to the stage when I thought it wouldn’t happen and I was resigned to carrying on, albeit perfectly contentedly, with a very busy life and lots of friends. By that stage in life you don’t really think love is going to happen, but it can.
“We are very settled in Bangor and are very happy. We are very compatible. We enjoy each other’s company and we enjoy being together. I think we bring out the best in each other. Our life is just lovely.
“I would say to others, never give up on love. For both of us, this was something out of the blue. It can happen to others too.”
‘I had given up on finding love but it happened out of the blue and I was married at 63’