I parked a lot of grief, life moved on but now the time is right...
Ex-reporter opens up over husband’s tragic death
because my kids are adult kids now. “I’ve always wanted to give back to the hospice because they cared for me as much as Kieran. “I felt they wrapped me up in a blanket and minded me as much as him and gave me the wherewithal to continue.” Minister for Culture and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan was the first person she approached to pen a letter having just lost her sister – and she didn’t hesitate to get involved.
Orlaith said: “It gave me the confidence to continue as there were loads of people who just said no.”
Clare singer Tommy Fleming lost his mum and dad on the same night within a half-an-hour in the same hospital, and he and his family had to deal with the double shock.
Tommy wrote: “That pain gradually turned to an ache, which eventually turned into guilt – for words left unsaid, things undone and the longing to spend time and talk with you both one last time.”
Gloria Hunniford, the Northernborn broadcaster, 78, lost her daughter Caron Keating, who left two small children when she died of breast cancer in her 30s.
Gloria set up the Caron Keating Foundation to raise money to help fight the disease.
She wrote: “I miss talking to you every day, you were the girl I loved talking to most in the world. The heartache of losing you will never be healed, but you have left us with millions of exquisite thoughts and memories.”
RTE reporter Brian O’connell wrote a letter to a friend of his, also called Brian, a musician who took his own life.
He said: “I never told you that I loved you. I suppose it’s not a thing Irish male friends do.
“And yet the grief was so raw, so uncontrollable, it was clear to me