FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
We met in O’Riada’s pub most Wednesday nights. There were five of us: Pat Delaney, Jimmy McGarry, Bill and Ann Hehir and myself. Peig, our landlady, and the owner of O’Riadas at the time, called us ‘The Wednesday Night Gang’. And I guess we were.
Sometimes we were joined by Nicky Maher and Mick McGrath. Needless to say we drank a few pints and talked a lot on those nights. We chatted, we laughed but mostly we argued. Debated if you wish but debates don’t quite reach the decibel levels of our exchanges (thanks to that Unholy Trinity of Trump, Netanyahu and Putin).
At times we were so loud that Sue, Peig’s right-hand woman, threatened us with yellow cards. But it was never just politics that was on the agenda. To quote Peig, who occasionally joined us in our chats: “Ye got through a lot on those Wednesday nights: politics, sport, parents, success, life after death and politics again.”
And we did.
If some of the above sounds familiar it’s because I wrote something similar after Pat Delaney, one of the five, passed away last February. Little did we think that we’d lose Ann Hehir before the year was out. But lose her we did much to our profound sadness and disbelief. We knew Ann was ill, she told us so one night and wanted no more talk about it. And there wasn’t.
Ann was one courageous, resilient and stoic lady but even she, a nurse by profession, and who understood her illness, might not have expected her decline to be so rapid. But rapid it was and now our ‘Gang of Five’ has been reduced to three.
Ann loved her style and was multitalented. She was also extremely modest, and unassuming, about her artistic gifts. She played the piano, made hats (an amateur milliner was Ann) and dabbled in pottery. On my desk at home is a lovely, ceramic bowl which I purchased at an exhibition of her work one Arts Festival and which I dearly treasure now.
Ann loved flowers, and was a talented flower arranger; indeed Ann, along with her good friend Mary Pyke, arranged flowers for weddings, and special occasions, all over Kilkenny and Leinster. Ann made a beautiful Christmas wreath for our front door last year and refused to accept any payment but when I insisted – she donated the money to charity.
But that was Ann – quietly considerate and caring.
Another quality that I loved about Ann was her talent for listening. She was a great listener (which is not to say that she didn’t have strong opinions, for sure she had – and voiced them) but Ann listened while letting the rest of us babble on, knee deep in bullshit betimes. That said, it was good bullshit. Great bullshit. If there’s a scale for measuring bullshit – ours would be way up there.
Occasionally, Ann and myself would leave the ‘politicos’ to it and have a quiet natter about this and that, mutual friends, and sometimes people we didn’t exactly dislike but weren’t overly fond of (only one or two, you understand). Did we gossip? God forbid. Well, maybe a little. A little, little! We got on, Ann and myself; we were kindred spirits in many ways.
Ann passed on the morning October 3 at University Hospital Waterford. Jimmy McGarry and I were privileged to be able to spend some precious time that Thursday night with Ann in her final hours. I felt like an intruder in the room among her family, her daughter Sandra, son Kenny, sister Mary, brother Michael and close family relations, but they made Jimmy and myself feel like family as, of course, did Bill.
And we knew, knew in our hearts, that Ann would have wanted both of us there because over time that ‘Gang of Five’ had become a ‘family of five’ while another ‘family’, Ann’s two great friends, Peig and Elenor, were always there for her. Jimmy and I left Ann to her family and loved ones but before going I pressed my lips to her cheek and whispered:
“ A kiss for the journey, Ann, a kiss for the journey…”
