I was talking to this man recently. He lives in Los Angeles but is a native of Mullaghroe. He’s lived away from Ireland for very many years and has come home to visit as often as he can – making contact with old friends and places. As the years passed, the places changed a little and many of the friends had passed to their Eternal reward. The result is that he hasn’t been home in a while but the interest in home and its people is central to his life. He loves to hear bits and pieces from home, reads the Sligo Champion on-line, checks the Irish Independent, tunes into Mid West Radio, listens to the obituaries and recognises there, some of the names he knew and is able to offer a prayer for them (well done Mid West Radio) and, he told me, every night he checks into this blog. I was so pleased to hear that and pleased to know that occasionally when he visits there might be something to do with home there that brings him close to the people and place he so obviously loves. He knew Alpha better than I know him myself, read about Felicity MacDermot’s Funeral, enquired about Philip Corcoran and was able to personalise him in making the link with his mother, Mary Corcoran (McHugh) whom he knew years ago. He enjoyed the call from the man offering to fix my computer and said he has had many similar calls.
It was strange to talk with him since, earlier in the day, I had an email from a woman in England wondering if James McDonagh had treated me badly in Ballymote since there had been no update from the night I attended his installation as Parish Priest there! She too, told me she checks the blog almost daily to see what’s happening.
All this reminds me that I’m doing okay here! This means something to people and I’m glad of that. In fact I just looked at the visits count and see that the blog has been visited 111611 times up to today. That’s a lot of ramblers!! So please let me know, from time to time, what you would like to see here. There’s an option to comment on a post (click on the little word bubble on top right hand side of post) so if you ever want to to do that, please do and you might make contact with another rambler … who knows!!
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And, as if meant to be a bookmark, I see this is the 300th post I’ve put on this blog