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. 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

Above: Debbie’s dad (Joe Cashman) and her son James on Joe’s 72nd birthday in January 2020.

America, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, all coming in be a tragedy, but one I could live with due to the and no quarantine in place! circumstances. But to live a couple of miles away and This, at a time when new variants of the virus were not be able to be there must create a hole in your soul. being imported into the country every day, seemed At my Dad’s funeral, it was desolate. This man would baffling. The Taoiseach Micheál Martin later that day have filled the church, and then some, he was a great said “Quite a significant number of people travelling man for a pint of Murphy’s and a chat and a game from Ireland are travelling on holidays, that needs to of cards, and at a party he would be the happy fella stop.” You reckon? belting out a Furey’s brothers tune. Reading through After a couple of weeks of my dad being able to get out the tributes on RIP.IE, one of his friends said on of bed and have a cup of Barry’s tea and a chat and hearing of my Dad’s passing, wrote “This is the saddest laugh at the tele, re-runs of Del Boys antics in Only day of my life RIP Joe”. We had 11 people inside the Fools, I knew these memories were gold. On the third church, as my uncle – who was one of the six men who week he couldn’t get out carried the coffin – wasn’t of bed except for help technically supposed getting to the toilet. The to be in the church, nurses that came every but he just stayed. The day dressed in PPE, such church doors were closed gorgeous souls – always and locked, we went upbeat and still able to in through a side door. have a chat and a laugh, Relatives, grandchildren while they cleaned and and friends stood outside freshened up my dad, and froze in the cold commenting to us that to pay respect. A few he never complained more ventured to the about being in pain until graveyard, which is like that day, he was a great speed dating for funerals. patient! They kept us up No rosary said, just a to date with the next step. quick few prayers, the 27th January, his 73rd birthday, was the day to start morphine. This was the final road, they told us. Time to put plans in place. 10 people allowed at Above: Happy days a couple of years ago, Debbie with Joe grave diggers from Cork County council do their bit over the hole, a bit of holy water sprinkled and it’s ‘show’s over, folks’! the funeral. Dear God, how do you tell lifelong friends The best part of funerals are where people gather and relatives they don’t make the cut? On January for a few drinks and food and you laugh-cry at the 31st, my dad passed away peacefully surrounded by memories and shenanigans of the departed person’s family, and for the rest of my life I will be grateful that highs and lows in life. I wanted to hear the stories. A he wasn’t like so many others in nursing homes and couple of old friends told me at the graveyard that my hospitals surrounded by fabulous staff, but they are dad was always talking about his trip to Australia and dressed in face masks and shields and white plastic, great family holidays abroad and I could have listened if they were there at all, when they passed away. I to those stories for hours, but we were kind of ushered have spoke to people since and they are haunted and out and I headed to my sister’s house for sandwiches frankly traumatised at not being able to be with their and tea and more tea. At that stage if you cut me I loved ones when they passed away. A lady serving at would bleed Barrys. the counter in Dunnes stores said “I’ll never get over Now after battling Covid for over 12 months, the Irish it,” when she told me of her relative dying alone with government have just introduced hotel quarantine, dementia. Another man told me of the awful guilt he to some countries only. Two ladies who had travelled felt when his mum passed away in a care home with to Dubai for breast enlargements (essential travel?) no one around her. Such stories I’m sure are up and refused to go into hotel quarantine in Dublin. Ended down the country. I knew when I was in Perth that if I couldn’t get back because of the pandemic, it would CONTINUED ON PAGE 66

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up in court, just to be told they were granted bail and had to ‘report to’ a quarantine facility. Well, I hope they’re not infectious. Another 3 people yesterday escaped hotel quarantine and they were later found driving in Galway. France, Italy and America and many other infected countries are not on the mandatory quarantine list – because they are Covid free? No they are not, Paris just went into full scale lockdown again. But countries and states such as Aruba, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, Kingdom of Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Moldova, Oman, Saint Lucia, Serbia, Territory of the Wallis and Futuna Islands are on the mandatory list. I haven’t even heard of some of those places so I will put it out there that they may not be as much of a threat as mainland infected Europe, and we all know what a liathróidí the USA fight against Covid has been. I return in a few weeks to Perth into mandatory hotel quarantine with 3 children, the youngest 3 years old, fun times ahead. But it’s ok. I knew this before I left and will happily go in, for the privilege it was to be able to see and say goodbye to my dad. It’ll cost a bomb and drive me mad but it will be worth it once we are outside. I was joking with the kids yesterday, ‘Imagine, being able to hug someone again?’ I can’t wait!

Above: Last year at ‘Wonder’ Christmas village in Fota Cork. Debbie, her Dad, Danny, Erin and James

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