Funerals in Ireland
during Covid BY DEBBIE CASHMAN TEAHAN Ah the ‘dreaded phone call’, the thing most feared from expats. I got mine in August 2020. Dad is sick. As in, sick, could be this, could be that, testing, scans, waiting results. “How are you Dad?” “Sure I’m grand, couldn’t be better” “You got tests done?” “I did. I did. I got my autopsy done.” “Your biopsy.” “Yeah, me autopsy. I was awake n’ all for it.” God love him, typical old school Irish dad, wouldn’t go to the doctor unless he was dying, which unfortunately, he was. Liver cancer. They tried chemotherapy but it was too late, the damage was done. He ended up in the Mercy Hospital in Cork, where no visitors were allowed, even phone calls were very hard, as they had to take him out of the ward to the desk just to say hello as he wouldn’t use a mobile and it was hard to hear with the background noise. Christmas and New Year’s alone in hospital, as Covid 19 ravaged the country. I had joked with people when the pandemic started, “No one is allowed to get sick until this crap is over because I can’t get home!” but my head was melted and my heart was broken, I had to get home. My joy of working casually in Australia, you are literally only a number and easily replaced. The hubby had 3 months of long service due. We could use that. Spoke with travel agents, there was a chance we could get stuck longer than 3 months. Decisions made in haste, the exemption granted on a condition that you had to stay away for 3 months, grand job, I’ll get to spend time with my Dad at 72, whose sand egg timer had plenty on the bottom and not a lot on top. Empty Perth airport, eerily quiet planes, which were great as we all got to spread out as we slept, would you like 3 seats or 4? Dublin airport in January 2021 was busy, how are all these people in need to fly to Ireland in dire circumstances? Queuing for EU or Non EU, shortest queue, less people less chance of catching coronavirus – EU queue it is. Mom, three children, stamp stamp, welcome home. New coronavirus cases in Republic of Ireland that day: 4,843. What, that’s it? No check up on where you will be self-quarantining? Strange. Especially coming from a place that pulls down the shutters like it’s way after last call and the Guards are on the way. 64 | THE IRISH SCENE
Above: Debbie’s dad (Joe Cashman) and her son James on Joe’s 72nd birthday in January 2020. Sister collected me and drove to her house, where my Dad had been released from hospital to be cared for ‘at home’ to avoid going into Marymount. Firstly, I was wary myself and the kids hadn’t been frog marched to self isolate, instead brought by my sister to the home where someone was terminally ill. I did not hug my dad. I organised a test the next day to prove that I was careful and didn’t contract the virus while travelling. I wondered at the blasé attitude, but I suppose when the floundering government cannot get a handle on the pandemic, confused messages about the seriousness follow. Watching the news after the Angelus to see the daily numbers rise and rise. My test came back clear. We formed a support bubble, where I drove every day 58km round trip, for 3 weeks, never stopped for being outside my 5km area. Watching RTE news in late January, they had a reporter in Dublin airport asking people where they were coming from and where they had been. 800 people had arrived through the airport and half of those had been to holiday destinations, just over half were Irish citizens. Holidays? The country was in level 5 lockdown with people not supposed to travel outside 5km unless it was essential for work or a support bubble, like mine where I could help look after my dad and could relieve my sister plus mind her kids with schools closed, when she and her husband were at work. People from South
