Last year in Croke Park I watched Méabh lift the Agnes O’Farrelly Cup from the entrance to the Hogan Stand tunnel. It was an image I had formed in my mind’s eye time and again ahead of the match. That and the imagining of her speaking the immortal lines spoken by so many All Ireland winning captains before her. ‘Ta athas an domhain an corn seo a glacadh. . .’.

Seared into my mind since then as part of the vista of celebrations was the image also of my mother in law Patsy Casey to the left. As Méabh’s granny and godmother the winning had a particular resonance for her – she was an immensely proud grandmother and loved the fact her grandsons represented Derry with distinction in football and her granddaughters Gráinne and Méabh played for the county camogie team.

The night before last year’s final she had attended the McKenna Cup Final in Armagh en route to Dublin. Indeed, one of her proudest photographs was a picture taken after Eoghan Rua won their first Derry senior Football Championship in 2010. In the picture with Patsy and the John McLaughlin Cup are Barry, Sean Leo, Ciaran, Colm, Niall and Hugh, six grandsons who were part of the winning panel.

Angela and myself and the children stayed with Patsy over Halloween weekend last year. It was like all the visits to Patsy’s house, convivial, plenty of chat and some wine to ease the conversation along. During the weekend we watched on DVD part of the Ulster Camogie Final we had just won. Patsy enjoyed watching the girls, delighting in their skill, speed and sheer beauty.

Just over a week later, she had passed away, after having endured a battle that weakened her body but never her indomitable spirit.

And so it was that we returned to Croke Park yesterday, again triumphing against what seemed after 30 minutes to be unsurmountable odds. At the finale as Méabh and Gráinne lifted the Cup, my eye glanced across to where the familiar loved figure had stood to one side last year.

Benevolent, beaming with satisfaction and pride. There was no-one where Patsy had stood, but in her absence I felt a tangible huge presence, soaring overhead and sweeping and swirling through my emotions. It made the occasion utterly poignant, but I know that even more than last time, she was with us, smiling on as she watched not one granddaughter, but two lift the Agnes O’Farrelly Cup.

Ádh Mór Patsy, agus go raibh mile mile maith agat.

Stan Collymore
Doesn’t see Ulrika
Anymore.
Instead
He speaks as gaeilge
And we love it,
Love it, love it
Just like when Queen
Liza midst our ladies
Uttered a cupla focal
Of stilted words. We nearly
Choked on our Carrigeen souffle.
Be advised famous Seamus said cross-
Table. Well what’ye think
Now Bellaghy boy, did you
Toast her?
Whose boys toasted
Your friends, women and countymen.
No flagon of yours raised?
And, so, Stan Collymore speaks Irish.
So do I. And it means fuck all
My cupla focal. Just like his.
Eureka.
Couldn’t bate her
With a big stick.

I bought Angela a pair of boots
For Christmas you understand
They surprised her, the boots
Very fashionable she said to me
I didn’t think they’d suit me she said.
Well I did. So,
One of the first things I noticed when
We met.
In the Hogshed bar were her
Long legs, all the way they go
Up, to her
Curly hair’d smile and that
Grin. Pint handed both less
Spotted now and more’s the pity. Then,
Fag smoked just like her
Mother.
Patsy, but no more.
So the boots. Predictable
I suppose I should have picked
Knee length boots, but I spied
My niece, in reality Angela’s niece Wearing…
Ankle boots. She looked great. She
Gets it from somewhere and
I know where.
Sometimes it takes a pair of boots to
Say you have great legs which in
Turn means. Well you know what it
Means as opposed to any other
Oul shite. Different ways of saying
The same thing. She looks great
Starting from the bottom up.
And as for the legs. Bootilicious.
And now she lies, sleeping
Across my lap. Boots
Kicked off, but they lie there Appreciated.
And it sometimes takes something
Like that to say what needs to
Be said as opposed to what’s
Lazily said. Easily said, but
Wrong.

I didn’t set out to write poetry in fact I don’t think I’m any good at it but to be honest it takes less time than the marathon harrowing efforts I enjoy subjecting myself to writing and others to reading.

Reading The Unnamable and ten pages in I am glorying in its black humour and depressive recuperative effects. I know why I didn’t get this ten years ago. I do now well.
I can see myself nursing-homed-alone surrounded foggily by people I neither know nor care about.
They will refer to me as an Unnamable oul fucker disclaimed by sons and daughters alike. Maybe they will visit betimes and I’ll pretend not to know them lest they accuse me of barbarianisms, caustic comments and worse.
Or perhaps I genuinely won’t know them, shadows flitting about asking questions. Has he eaten? What about his piles are they bothering him? And the other problems galore. How long have you got. Well longer than you think. I could live well into my hundreds if the scientists keep at it. Imagine. Old and alone till an octogenarian son or daughter comes to visit. Father and child fighting over the same reality. Except they will win.
And I will say remember the time you were in the Christmas play but it will pass unheard and unanswered. Maybe I could put on a P2 nativity play in there for aged oul decrepits like yours truly. A children’s drama enacted by elderly children. Be ok til someone fluffs their lines or wanders off. But, why change the habit of a lifetime. Hopefully by then it will be foggy and grey and of course they will put it down to age. That will suit me just fine.