Norah and Dara Casey
BUSINESSWOMAN Norah is chairperson of Harmonia, Ireland’s largest magazine company. She says: ‘MY DAD Harry Casey died in his sleep on the eve of his 70th birthday and I never got a chance to say goodbye, to say all the things I would have wanted to say. So this is what I would have wanted him to know: I have a beautiful boy Dara who was only six months when you left this world. I understand more now all the worry and the love it takes to raise a child. You had six of us to nurture and yet you made each of us feel special and uniquely loved and valued. Thank you for believing I could be anything I wanted.
I joke all the time that I was raised by a feminist and my mother was pretty cool too. I only understood much later what a precious gift that was.
I loved you best when you started a row, stirring the pot until the discussion became more heated with us all shouting and arguing and making our point, nurturing a new generation of opinion makers.
Most of all I want to tell you that you are still here. I see you often in my sisters and brothers and your grandchildren — the eyes, the flash of a smile, the nod of the head, shoulders back, walking tall and within us all. We were so blessed.’
THE magazine publisher’s son Dara, 19, has just finished his first year at UCD. His dad, broadcaster Richard Hannaford, died of cancer aged 49 in 2011. He says: ‘WHAT do you tell your father when it’s time to say goodbye for the last time? I struggled with this. I was only 12 when my Dad died. I ended up just saying, “I love you and it’s okay, we will be alright”. It’s simple, it’s accurate and I hope it helped him at that moment. If I were to talk to him one last time, I’d tell him that my dream is to some day be as good as he was.
Everything I am today is because of the importance he had in my young life. I will always love him, I will always admire him but most importantly, although it has been hard, I am okay. If I could I would spend some time telling him about my university life and my friends new and old. And lastly in my final minutes, I would hold my father tight and say to him, “I love you and it’s okay, we will be alright”.’