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‘Doc On 1’ with Michael Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 14th of February 2025 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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‘Doc On 1’ with Michael Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 14th of February 2025 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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‘Doc On 1’ with Michael Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 14th of February 2025 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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Mae'r gwaith Mae'r gwaith Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Go raibh maith agat Tully, I know it says probably Tully, but everything goes through your head at the time it goes out An air and sea search is continuing off the County Down Coast for three members of a family who left the port of Kilkeel in a small fishing boat early yesterday morning The Coast Guard says the disappearance of the vessel has been upgraded from an emergency to a mayday situation Very calm, clear day I mean, with the sea and the cruel sea There's a sense of truth to that The sea is unpredictable You just never know If something happens at home, you can in a sense of sure, you can run But you see, there's nowhere to run to There's a life after life boat There is nowhere to run You're left to face the sea They haven't been out since Christmas They were decommissioned and three boys I wanted to just have one more outing on the boat They decided they would go out on the 13th night, 14th morning and that's it, they never came home I was up that morning from 5 o'clock, couldn't sleep and there was nothing, nothing happened, nothing to draw your attention to anything that would have been out of place I watched all the boats come out and you couldn't even see the boats fishing off There was nothing on board that would have made you sort of say, God, there's something happened out there My father and them, I think, had to go out about quarter past three, but they were out in the reach of the ground about between five and half five So they literally only reached the ground Three generations of the same family, a grandfather father and son, all called Michael Green are missing. The signs are not good. They left the port of Kilkeel County down early yesterday morning to go fishing for prawns at the mouth of Carlingford Lock Conditions were very calm at the time The boy was on his half-term break leaving him free to go on the trip Concern grew when there was no communication from the vessel yesterday evening A huge search operation involving fishermen and rescue services from the UK and the Republic Yes, I can remember getting the phone call saying there's a boat missing and I remember going coming down to the harbour that people were beginning to gather at the harbour to find out what was happening and I remember going to the Greens I remember being with them The pictures are real in my mind It's difficult to sort of know how to pray especially when we know the lifeboat's out We know the lifeboat's out We can pray for the safe recovery but sometimes we know if a ship has gone down there's no sign there's no sign of a life raft The chances of survivors is then limited We were extremely close I mean, the only one in the house and my two brothers when we grew up and we were out on our own in the country I only ever had them to run about with or carry on with and that made us even closer and you know nobody got past Michael I mean, when I was going out with boys I had to go through Michael first but in a way I look back on it and I really, really cherish it because I really had such a wonderful, happy childhood and that overcomes the bad Michael was three years older than me but it felt like the year as you get older three years seem nothing but when we were younger I suppose we did go off about a bit like the older brothers do but the five years between Michael and Jarrah and my younger brother it didn't seem a matter the years weren't there really Michael was extremely young at heart always loved Christmas loved children totally adored children and was like my father he was totally devoted to his wife they were just, Michael and Kathleen to me were a double of my own mother and father extremely happy didn't have very much but were extremely happy they had each other and they had their family and a house and we were all the same I mean we've all been brought up that way if you have your house you have everything Christmas was always wonderful in our house because Daddy and Mummy just loved Christmas Daddy was only 20 when Michael was born so he was a young grandad but to have a 13 year old granddaughter, he was extremely young I suppose he had arthritic pain he had arthritis in his hip joint and two quarter way up his spine but in saying that he did his best he didn't he would have joked with the children and carried on with them as much as he possibly could have but full of fun and devilment really and Michael and Jeffrey both I would have done this with myself in a way if I was almost to take after him Michael had just got on the Monday before he went out he had just got a health check done for the long distance load driving and he had got all clear and everything and got his photographs and that taken but his photographs were they weren't Michael if you can understand me they were it was Michael but it was a haunted look on Michael it was really they scare me even that they weren't they weren't the brother I knew they were weird looking it was like a haunted look on his face as if this was me taking photographs and that's another it was really weird I know it does sound weird but he had his photographs in the picture so I had to point me down these photographs you know it's just a haunted look on his face it's just you you interpret it out of the photographs I mean it's just not I don't know if you can imagine him looking like that but it's just what we look at in the photographs and we think you know because all the photographs he's always grinning at me you know but he wasn't in this one he wasn't looking forward to decommissioning the boat he was looking forward to being a lorry driver yeah but he'd never worked on land ever so I don't know I could never have seen Michael on land working from school he was on the boat he was only fourth year at school and he'd give up his last year at school he was going to fishing anyway and he went straight to fishing with daddy but Michael he was just a gem a wee devil but a gem we lived beside him I don't even know how many years from he was born up to about six years or so before they died so he was maybe four or five and he cried because we were leaving because there only was our family Michael's family in the estate that they was at the time and I remember saying to the three of them don't worry you shall come and stay in my house in the night you know my first night in I promised you I promised them at the start when we were both in the house that the three of them would be staying with me the first night and I think he thought we forgot I mean he started to cry and the husband he broke down he started to cry so we went back down the road and took the three of them up but he was oh he loved football and just a wee devil I mean they had a wee mini dash round two mini dash rounds one had just given birth to a wee pup just in the January and he couldn't wait to get this pup up to an older age where he would be able to tease him he was teasing it and it wasn't even hardly able to move you know but he was a lovable child such a lovable child even though daddy and Michael were getting out of the fishing wee Michael was determined he was going to fish so he got older I think if you allow fears to dominate you you are never going to go to sea and so it's respect for the sea they know it can be treacherous they know it in a minute in a second a wave can change your life forever I love the sea right up until about 1985 I started to sort of dislike it then my uncle was drowned in the harbour and I got a fear for it because I thought if this happens in the harbour what can happen out and right at sea but I always prayed I mean that's the only thing you can do I mean when it's in their blood you can't ever change them there's always a fear a continual fear of fishing and the harm I mean the dangers are there there's always that fear no matter how big the boat is it's small compared to the sea and when you've only got that small amount of space and such a big expanse of sea there's nothing really you can do and out there I don't think it matters I think once you go into the water you don't have much time my sister-in-law phoned the coastguard to say that she wasn't able to contact her husband and her father and that her wee son was on the boat and my mum went up the road around two, three o'clock and I had my two children with me at the stage and they were supposed to be school the next morning but I said to mummy I go home leave the children off and come back in wish you the best and I go home and she went up the road and Thomas lives just across the road daddy's over there with her brother daddy just looked up to Thomas she went across she phoned Thomas over and she told Thomas that daddy and Michael and the child hadn't come in and Thomas phoned mummy and mummy went and got Jeremy and Tricia they lived just up the yard a bit from mummy and at five o'clock mummy then phoned the coastguard and told them that reported the same as Kathleen had done previously and they said that they were already trying to contact the boat and mummy said look they've been gone for 24 hours I'm really really extremely worried I've got an 8 year old on board and they said they were sending Nimrod out and daybreak so that's what they've done so we got a phone call here at five to say that Nimrod was being sent out five in the morning, five o'clock early morning On the 15th of February 2002 we had a report of what was at that time missing persons reports three members of the Green family missing during the 15th day that certainly changed to a more serious incident with a clear understanding that the Thuddermurray lass had founders and the three members of the Green family three Michaels as they've become known as perished From a policing point of view we were keeping in contact with the Green family and we had a liaison to work with the families throughout the 15th we became aware of pieces of the Thuddermurray lass being discovered at sea and that confirmed the tragedy that had taken place It's important I think to not bring false hope people talk too much sometimes and bring rather than leave it to those that are involved to deal with the problem and to answer the family speculation is people speculate as to what is actually happening and they don't know and that was one of the great problems we faced was speculation and probably the best of intentions and maybe at the same time they're bringing comfort but speculation can be dangerous what do you say? You say a little, give farts straight farts as they are and not to speculate and not to bring false hope because they are looking for hope, but if you start giving false hope and that hope is dashed that's cruel to them so you try and bring the story back to them as it really is at that point in time I went down to the harbour on the 14th night with the newspaper that we had bought because I had said to my dad who was asked to explain I said, you know dad actually I called him daddy and I said, you know it has hit its peak and this is a big thing for us it would be great for your back and I said I'll be down at the harbour tomorrow evening to pick you up I went down to the harbour and we stayed until 1.30 in the morning and I knew then I knew we were talking bodies then because my father never, or my brother never, it would have maybe been half an hour never ever anything more if they said they were coming in at half 6 they were in between half 6 and 7 they said they would be in between 6 and 7, well you knew that's the time they would have been in they didn't come in and we watched every boat, me and my mother I mean I had been out to Carhines and said, you know, we were trying to phone the boat but we can't get no answer and there was 313 calls or something made tonight, it was mobile that night and obviously none of them were answered because the clip was found on the, one of the windows of the wheelhouse and I think the phone maybe was in his pod but I don't know, I mean he kept everything which he wasn't wearing because he was in bed now we knew that night we were talking about it, even Carhines knew yeah One man being lost is a tragedy for that family but the Greens obviously with little Michael being aboard and with the hunt for the Tory Murray lass that went on for such a long period of time and then the question, was their bodies aboard weren't they aboard and rumours going round as to what was actually happening, made it very difficult of course it got high priority and publicity in the press and this made it very difficult for the family but again, talking to other families around, when there is a tragedy, it brings home to them their tragedies that they have experienced over the years I remember one man saying, I can, he was in his 80's saying I can still see my crew in the water Looking back on it it was like a daze, you know I can't remember it, there's bits of it I can remember and bits I can't remember Obviously the Friday the 15th was the big day that you do remember and it will always stick by you because there was, the plane was hovering over my own house right round the sea here and you know it just, it seems as if you're living in a nightmare and somebody's going to pinch you and you're going to wake up you know, but it doesn't happen it was just like a long wait because there was people continually coming, you know it wasn't just the two days that people maybe seen on TV or whatever or the day of the funeral, it was eight and a half weeks of people coming every day and only for them people, we would never have coped I mean you were torn between two homes I'm extremely close to both of my brothers, but I used to live next door to my brother Michael and I was really close to my dad and I was at the home every day and I was at Michael's every day and my other brother lives at the home so I was always seeing them every day as well but you were torn between if you're not at home you felt guilty because you thought you should have been at Michael's house with Kathleen because of the girls as well and Kathleen and you felt then you should have been at home with mummy when you were at Kathleen's and Michael's, you know you just were torn between the two of them really it became clear that the vessel had foundered and using sonar and every available piece of equipment, we were searching squares of square grids of the area to try and locate the preliminary last and at the same time everyone in the area wanted to help and they were searching beaches to try and find some sort of anything that would be connected to the preliminary last to give us some sort of steer as to where the vessel was this is the thing, when there is a tragedy, people begin to gather, families come round, the community comes round to support those that are going through the trauma it's the same in every fishing village every fishing port, as soon as they hear there's a tragedy people are touched and they would go and surround the family and just to be with them and say look we're here with you sometimes like the grains that went on, prayers weren't answered immediately we don't know why we're praying the bodies would be recovered and praying that they would find comfort and strength and that the bodies would be recovered and it would help them to bring comfort to them that their loved ones was home and at rest that was important for them they knew that point yes once wreckage was found they knew they were looking for bodies you do see it I mean every time they're out when we were younger we were a catholic family my father wasn't over religious but he was very strict going to chapel, going to confessions, communion, whatever and he was adamant about prayers and what have you very very much so as was my brother but that was all we could do I mean daddy yes I suppose when I say he wasn't over holy he was in a way because he had everything blessed the boat was blessed he had holy pictures in the boat he had blessed salt in the boat he had holy water in the boat he had everything like that but every every fish in town or village or whatever and every fish in family would understand by saying yes you do fear right round that pier are they going to come home I've always prayed anyway but it was the one thing that kept us close and kept us going the whole time they were missing was the prayers and the people It's now more than a month since the Tullamurray last disappeared the Green family have now sadly accepted that they won't see their loved ones again I'm joined on the line by Sergeant Elvin Leach in charge of the underwater search unit in Kilkeel you have located the boat what can you tell us well the boat was located last evening by the fisheries protection vessel the Ken Vickers it was located by side scan sonar we were immediately alerted to be on standby to go and investigate this sonar reading we went to Kilkeel this morning at first light and went out aboard the Ken Vickers to a position approximately 7 miles east of Kilkeel there we commenced our diving operation we found on the bottom the wreck of a fishing vessel which we identified as that of the Tullamurray she's sitting in 42 metres of water on a sandy sea bed and she's sitting up there in our dives today we have seen no signs of any human remains April the 12th I accompanied Elvin and his diving team on board the Ken Vickers crew out to the dive scene 7 miles east of Kilkeel as I understand it and as I said it was an education for me, there was zero visibility at stages on the sea bed, but nevertheless it was nice we were able to recover Edward Megglegreen the grandfather to the surface we understood, we knew we couldn't go back out again to the scene and we knew it would be the following day and I don't think there was any of us including Elvin's diving team and the crews of the Ken Vickers I don't think any of us had a peaceful night's sleep, no one the family had one body home and it was vitally important that the other two be brought home as well Kathleen, young Michael's mother had specifically asked me that if we had discovered the bodies that we wouldn't leave young Michael down there on his own so we made a conscious effort on the Saturday morning to remove him before his father so we recovered him to the surface first and then his father was recovered last which was harrowing it was really one of the hardest things we had to do was to bring those bodies ashore to the family at Warren Point Harbour I don't think there was a dry eye on the quayside all these supposed roughy-toughy policemen and roughy-toughy divers and we were all standing crying our eyes out One of the bodies was found at night it was poignant it was dark and then the next day I think my wife opened the curtains and we knew at this time that the other two bodies were on the boat and I think she summed it up by saying it was like a resurrection and I happened to say this to one of the Greens I said my wife just said this morning it's like a resurrection he said that's funny so I just drew back my curtains he said I just thought about the same he said it reminded me of the resurrection because it was on Easter time and it reminded us of our Lord's resurrection I'll never forget it I'll never forget it my daughter and Michael's daughter Stephanie, the second eldest girl she was sorry my daughter and Stephanie were both making their confirmation that year and my younger daughter was made her Communion along with Lee-Miguel supposedly but the confirmation was first to come up and it was about two and a half weeks before the confirmation we decided it was a Friday night we decided to go and get something for confirmation because they had nothing they still didn't give us much hope of getting bodies at that stage and we didn't know that they had actually the divers had decided to dive on the boat that day or that evening and myself my mum and my sister-in-law Patricia, Geoffrey's wife and Michaela went up to Neary to shop to get something and we were just into the boat crane when we got a phone call to say that daddy's body was on board the Ken Pickers which was the fisheries vessel that brought them in and that was total mayhem to get down the road you know, I know it was only from Neary to one point but it seemed like forever and a Friday night in Neary is just chaotic so yes we seen it would have been about 7 o'clock so then we knew we had all planned where the bodies were going because we wanted it as private as possible, I mean nobody knew they were going to one point because we thought if they bring them to Coquille that will be all press and we just felt we needed time on our own with them and then on the Friday evening daddy's body came up but we weren't allowed near him but it wasn't even that, they were in body bags he was in a body bag obviously but he we just wanted to go over, he was still wearing his boots and we just felt you know it would be nice to go over and say you know dad we're here we're here for you you know and I think Ronnie the policeman he was a brilliant playoff, you know and I think he was doing it for our own good really he was trying to sort of ease it on us that it wouldn't be so tough you know to try and go over and touch a body bag and knowing you can't open it you know I think that was no no we weren't allowed near it well it was a few feet, 3-4 feet away but it's a long distance you haven't seen him in 8 weeks 8 and a half weeks they brought daddy's body up first Elvin Leach the head diver he said to us that he brought daddy's body up obviously because daddy was on top of the two other ones so he said he thought it would be better and he thought it would be what daddy would have wanted because he would like Michael and the child to spend the last night together on the boat and on Saturday we made it and at 4 o'clock we got the phone call to say that they were on their way with my brother and my nephew and it was devastating it was very hard because the press had to get in I understand they've done a great job for us I mean only for them we would have been totally lost you know only for the press we wouldn't have had the coverage but it was a private time it was a time that we needed it on our own and Michael's two girls well one, I think maybe two I don't know, two girls were there and to see a father and son's body coming up in body bags it's just not a nice sight you know and the one with the child was coming up and he was the first one up and Michael's body was on the boat and these photographers were photographing Michael's body coming up and it wasn't until the next day that we realised that there were photographers we thought there were the boat that comes in ahead of the campers to guide them in to the moor point but it wasn't we didn't know who they were but apparently they had paid somebody on the other side to let them have a boat or something and we'll never know that I don't know if that's right or not but that's what we were told and just after that terrible shock of having to see the two bodies coming up especially an 8 year old and a 32 year old man or 33 year old man I'm sorry plus you'd been through the previous night of daddy and then on Sunday morning you wake up and you open your Sunday paper you don't even open it from a front page body bag it was devastating I mean I do understand why the press works and I do understand and we thank them immensely but just that one day it brought a certain type of closure because it wasn't they wanted their loved ones home and they felt they could put them to rest I remember a widow in her 80's saying to me at least I know where my husband body is, I know where he is and some of his crew wasn't found but he was found at least I know where my husband is and I felt sorry for those that don't know and this was something that happened in the 50's when she was in her 30's and this is a 50 year letter but she knew, she said at least I know I've got that comfort I've got that strength to know that my husband's body is at rest back home I mean to be able to give them the burial that we know they would have wanted was, it was great you know yes we couldn't see them, I mean the coffins were closed but we all got to put in our wee bits that we felt made us, you know sort of maybe people would think it was strange but we've been photographed as children and that and wee notes and silly wee things I suppose but they meant a lot to us you know whenever you go into a room in my brother's house there was a white coffin and a wooden brown coffin we lived on to me it was two boxes and this is the last I've seen and in my father's house it was a wooden box I wanted to see my dad, I didn't want to see a coffin, I wanted to see my brother and my nephew, give them a kiss and say we love you we'll see you again but it wasn't meant to be they were very private people and maybe that was the reason that the coffins were closed or you know the reason that they were so long away was because they didn't want to be found they wanted the coffins to be closed I don't know, I mean I'll never know hopefully one day we do see them again I think there's very little one can say to them, you just, you're alongside them you listen to them more than me trying to talk I think it's important I listen to them and let them talk let them express their feelings there's no words really to say just to be alongside and to say look we're thinking of you we're there with you, the community's there with you and we seek to bring comfort, we're praying for you just to reassure them that we are praying for them and we're alongside them I think sometimes they can't pray themselves perhaps they don't know what to pray their mind's in a turmoil and you're there supporting them just to be there I think it's like the poem, you know, the footsteps and you look back and say there's only one set and where the Lord says well that was my set I was carrying you and we have to do that ministry of carrying them through that tragedy and helping them through it because their mind's in a turmoil physically, mentally, spiritually why, why, why there's no answer there's no answer to that why we don't know oh you continually ask yourself, I mean myself and sister-in-law we are extremely close, I mean we were close anyway but now that Michael is gone, we're really close and myself and her would be if I'm not in her house, she's in my house so it would be a talk about it's always my other child and dad, it always comes back to that, and if they had of been here how did they cope what really happened you know, you're always asking yourself that for my sister-in-law Caroline and for my mum, for all of us Jeff and myself you know, the children have been through hell and back all of us, you know, because we were such a close, really, really close family and it has been hell, because you're continually asking yourself, you know did it suffer, or was it quick, and then you think to yourself, right, well if they had time to get it together they had to have time to think and you do you do sufficient anything you cry yourself to sleep and my sister-in-law and her two wee girls I mean it's only hitting, my brother's the eldest wee girl now and she is she keeps looking for her daddy she has a picture above her bed that when she closes her eyes it's him she closes her eyes to, and it's him that she wakes up to in the morning and my mother just can't even go home it hasn't got any easier, I mean you just learn to live with it but your pain gets deeper and deeper Valentine's Day to daddy was just another day on my mind it's hard, but daddy wasn't around that day it could have been in small ways meaningful ways not cards or flowers but my brother was a romantic big romantic and he had left Kathleen the most beautiful Valentine's card and it was the most beautiful for Ashley, he built it himself he had awarded it so beautifully and Kathleen didn't give Michael her Valentine's card because she thought he was being in and that broke her heart that really broke her heart that she held on to that Valentine card for eight and a half weeks until it went off but there would have been 13 years married in June and Michael never ever was out with another girl only Kathleen Kathleen was just his princess as they used to say and she'll never get over that I mean, my mum's heart is beating extremely hard and she's not an older woman and she's only gone 55 or so this year so her and daddy have never been out with anybody else only themselves, each other that's it so a disabled childhood really hurts too it's devastating because both of them Michael, mummy and daddy didn't go anywhere without the other it makes you wonder why he was so good and so devoted to one another or taken or separated why take the good but then say the good always go first You've been listening there to a documentary on the Tullamurray lass, a boat that set out from Kilkeve County down on this day, the 14th of February 2002 with three generations of the Green family who tragically did not return agus Gainneanna de Acrosta Oireabh Sian agus Ser na Mhath that's a story that people like us who live on the coast of Ireland up and down the coast can identify with very much and re-think of that family today now as I said at the outset, today is of course St Valentine's Day and we're going to bring you at 6pm a very special programme that we've just made here in Connemara Community Radio for Valentine's Day it was made by Niamh Ruan just last week in fact Niamh Ruan was with us on Work Experience, Niamh is a student a 5th year student in St Paul's Secondary School in Uithreard and she came out to the studio as a matter of fact for her work experience so well done Niamh it's a great achievement to make a radio programme all by yourself with a little help of course from the technicians and the staff here at Connemara Community Radio so we look forward to that at 6pm but before that I'm going to bring you just a snippet of another documentary called St Valentine's Bones, I think we brought you this doc maybe two years ago as many people will know St Valentine's Bones are reputedly in Dublin in Whitefriar Church right in the centre of Dublin in the old historic centre, very quiet out of the way street Whitefriar Street there in Dublin but very well known now indeed for the fact that there is a shrine there to St Valentine and it is believed that his bones are indeed buried in that church, so Maeve Higgins the well known comedian, she looked into this a couple of years back and we're going to take just the first 15 minutes of that programme where Maeve looks into this Whitefriar Church and meets people who go there religiously you could say, but especially this time of the year on Valentine's Day with their own stories to tell Maeve The best thing I found was in Whitefriar's church on Ainger Street there's an altar devoted to St Valentine in one corner of the church a big statue of him and candles that you can light all around, draped with a heavy red velvet cloth that says in gold lettering St Valentine Listen underneath the altar is a glass case there's a sturdy little treasure chest inside it, and inside that there's a sealed wooden box and inside that box are St Valentine's bones some of them anyway alongside a glass vial supposedly tinged with his blood they're relics, given to the church by Pope Gregory XVI in 1836 there's also a notebook, a simple soft cover notebook that people write to St Valentine in they put their prayers down on paper asking for what they need, telling him their secret hopes or fears it's all there in the pages and anybody can read it when I first read the book the quiet catholic church I was standing in suddenly filled up with the most romantic dramatic, hopeful and private moments of people's lives I couldn't quite believe it existed a young couple very young couple I would say late teens and they were non-nationals and both of them extremely handsome looking and the two of them were just in front of the altar here and the two of them holding hands and the two of them tears streaming down their faces both of them, the boy and the girl so you see it definitely exists Father Brian McKay puts it there he's sort of in charge of the book replacing it when it's full and storing all the old ones upstairs I'm a bit jealous of his job I mean imagine getting these glimpses into people's lives and hearts pretty much everyday I longed to interfere but I didn't and I was just wondering were they desperately in love with one another? I suppose they were actually were they after having a row and a made up? but whatever it was there was huge emotion and they were in front of Valentine and Valentine was obviously helping them to come to terms with whatever it was that was bothering them I would love to have spoken to them but I just felt this was intimate there were the two of them and there was Valentine and there wasn't really room for anybody else If they wrote in the book were you tempted to come and look in the book after they left? I was but they looked they were either Spanish or Italian I would think what they wrote in the book I don't have either Spanish or Italian I'm afraid intriguing though it was I couldn't read It's weird that in all the time I've been coming into the church and reading the book I've barely seen anybody actually writing it I've always wondered what sort of people write to Valentine All sorts sizes, shapes and conditions of human beings because we get people young and perhaps people not so young and people who are in love and people hoping that they might be in love and people looking for a partner and people hoping that the partner they already have will stay with them so the love dimension is always there This means that I'm engaged Valentine my dear, on the 29th of August at your shrine please watch over us and watch all our studies sorry and take care of all our studies in the coming year which is lovely you notice that we got engaged here on the 29th of August it could very well imply the wording seems to imply that it was actually in front of this shrine that they got engaged that again is not unusual here I wonder if it is unusual to be some girl who's been silently reading the book for 13 years imagining the lives of the people who write in it I'm mortified to say there was a time when I thought I was like Amelie you know from the film, really quirky and adorable, knowing all these secret cute things and then I brought this guy I was seeing into the church to show him the book he wasn't Irish or Catholic so maybe the whole church thing spooked him or maybe it was the bones and blood thing also we weren't even together that long so it could have been the whole true love thing whatever it was he was pretty uncomfortable and that experience made me feel terrible like maybe it wasn't fair to come traipsing in and showing off the book whenever I felt like it I sometimes wonder do people realise that there may be somebody else reading these but I suspect they know that that part to writing it is that their story is for anybody that might be interested either maybe to get a little bit of encouragement themselves or to realise that there is true love to be found and St. Valentine is a worldly man When I first found the notebook almost 13 years ago I thought it was charming and sweet but I was sceptical I just couldn't believe people were so focused on finding love I remember thinking I would never be so desperate to find a boyfriend that I'd come into a church and write prayers in a notebook to a statue as a learner and like help my children in their relationships and help Joan and me they are kind of related please pray for my husband help him see we love him and want us all to work as a family they're quite there you are there's an interesting one please ask God for a holy husband for the person's name that's put in I suppose people have when they come to St. Valentine they've already got a certain idea of the partner that they're looking for so they ask Valentine is there any chance that you can actually help me find the right person not just any person music in the years since I first found the book I've been bruised falling off my high horse and I recovered and I learned and I had a ball and I hope I got some empathy along the way I feel like something shifted in me when I reached my thirties and I began to understand the need for some kind of long term buddy system in life you know, a partner although I really hate the word partner it's too grown up, it's too businessy like we initially merged in the first quarter and we shared the same corporate values and I offered him a buy in anyway, partner's not the ideal word but I hope you know what I mean I mean like this invisible pull towards something like not to put too fine a point on it but true and everlasting love music I came back to Whitefriars Church and back to Valentine's Notebook with even more curiosity I wanted to find the people who write in it and ask them why and what exactly they were looking for and of course whether or not they'd found it I sat on the back pew with the microphone and waited for people at the start it was fine I felt like I was on a stakeout but hardly anyone came along in the three days I waited and the ones that did didn't want to talk to me I gave up after one man pretended his phone was ringing and literally ran away but I couldn't stop thinking about the book and all the stories in it and the people behind them so I put a notice with my contact details on the altar asking people to share their experience of the notebook but not holding out much hope that anybody would I was ready to play the long game sure I was hoping somebody would call but I was cool about it my friends would ask if there'd been any contact and I'd shrug and say no, but it's no big deal I called in to Father McKay, casually he said there were plenty of people writing the book I said, oh, good and I checked that I'd put the right phone number on the notice I had I waited, and then I waited so long I got distracted by other things but I still thought about the notebook and fell asleep every night eventually I just stopped waiting and then one day I got a missed call from a private number I assumed it was my credit card company calling about overdue fees but it wasn't it was way better than that and if you wish to call me my name is Jacinta Marr I should explain that I was so excited to finally meet someone who wrote in the book that I was kind of yelling at Jacinta when we met in the doorway then she lowered her voice because we were in a church so I followed her lead and lowered mine even more and then she lowered hers again so that's how we came to stand whispering in front of Valentine it's a warning, you know, if you go to write in the book and somebody comes along and they see you writing back you know, I'll wait till you're gone and when you're gone then you see them kind of going up to do their little piece, you know so it really is, I think, for people to although they're writing in a book that's quite public it's very private, you know what I mean, as well I don't know who I was expecting but I was surprised because Jacinta was like a cool business lady she'd just come from her job in a city centre bank and she looked so glamorous and she was wearing a wedding ring I think most people I know a lot of people with regard to the shrine at St Valentine I think it's to meet a partner to meet somebody, you know and a lot of what would be written in the book would be that and a lot of people pray for maybe marriages that are in trouble a huge amount of that too and again, St Val, I think people just you know, he's the man of love that's the way I always think of him anyway So, you write in the book Yes What have you written in the book? Of course, that my marriage, I mean, I'm 30 years married so I'm in a really happy marriage and that it will always be like that for maybe whatever time left and that the boys would follow in that they'd always have a lovely relationship happy, content and kind to each other Do your sons know that you write? No I'd be shocked Absolutely they don't know Jacinta was so at home in the church she dropped into mass most mornings before work and writes regularly in Valentine's book I think I felt so comfortable talking to her about the notebook and about St Valentine because it's all just so familiar to her I mean, to even abbreviate his name I'd have no doubt in my mind that Val found a good partner that they have Yeah, definitely No question about it Yeah I think if you pray if you pray it, pray your request I think writing it down just intensifies that message that you want to get across to the particular saint i.e. Valentine Listen, I really want this, I really need it It intensifies, that's the word I would use the feeling that's inside and that you really want this to happen I just think it's really nice when you're, you know, there's so many marriages in trouble today and really, you know I work with people and it's tough so I think if you have happiness at all in the relationship it's just such a wonderful, it's a basis for everything it helps you through and you can get through you can move mountains with it so I think it's hugely important you know, to have sort of love in your life Where did you meet your husband and em I met my husband by going to a do with another guy oh yeah and through the night em my husband came into the room and just sat down because he knew the guy that I had gone to the dance with and em the guy that I went to the dance with went off for smokes or the loo or whatever and we just got chatting and em he asked me could he see me again and I said yeah and he said the weekend and I said yeah because the guy I went to the do with, we were more friends anyway it wasn't kind of anything underhanded now I have to stress that so we met em the following weekend on a Sunday night and it was the beginning of a wonderful relationship and it just turned out coincidentally down the road in the past my mum and dad and his mum and dad had been friends which we absolutely knew nothing about and just one night I went to the house and there was a photograph on the mantle of my mum and dad and his mum and dad and some other people so yeah, so really my mum and dad were quite happy and likewise so it was over then so that was it and together ever since That is a coming up now in October 30 years That was a short piece from that documentary Valentine's Bones made by RTE with the comedian Maeve Higgins and the people who visit Whitefriar Church in Dublin where St. Valentine's Bones are buried and it's open all year, every day 7 days a week and you're welcome to visit any time but I have no doubt there will be many many visitors there today now we're going to go to the programme I promised you, a special Valentine's Day programme made by the student Niamh Rowan from St Paul's Secondary School in Uhtred who was with us just last week on Ork Experience and well done to you Niamh for making that programme after that we're going to have our monthly, our excellent monthly seascapes programme with Tom McSweeney and that's going to run a little later than usual, it's going to run until quarter past seven so entry time won't start this week until 7.15 but we will have a busy programme from 7.15 up until 8.00pm and then it's over to Tomás Little for American Country so thank you very much for being here Radio Pobal, thank you very much and I'll see you later next week It's ready
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