Goodbye Nora, Farewell Joe
A tribute to cottage neighbours in Kilshanny
We were all lost in our own thoughts when the butterfly took flight above the chapel-full of mourners, fluttering quietly over our heads.
The butterfly hovered above the altar a while, as Nora’s funeral mass got underway. Her precious prayer book with the edges frayed, her teapot and her legendary biscuit cake - a special occasion staple for fifty years - were brought as symbols of her life and placed on her coffin, next to the picture of her delicate frame and smiling face, the way we all remember Nora.
With heavy hearts we laid to rest a beautiful soul, someone special to the cottage, on Monday.
In her 99th year holding her prayer book in her hands, my nearest neighbour, Nora Tierney passed away peacefully last week.
Nora’s was the first door I knocked on after the sale went through at the cottage.
“Haven’t you got great courage,” she’d said. I’m not sure was she ever aware, that I’d never forget those words.
A lady to her fingertips, she was sweet and warm and always welcoming.
Nora lived her entire life in Kilshanny, Co Clare, so many of her most precious moments anchored around St Augustine’s Church, where she was baptised as a baby having been born into the early years of a fledging Free State.
“What changes must she have seen,” Fr Henry Nevin said at her funeral mass in that same church, packed to capacity for the 12 noon ceremony that saw her safely to heaven.
A devout Catholic, Nora bore four children, two boys and two girls, to her husband John Tierney, who pre-deceased her by 24 years. A quarter of a lifetime ago, she’d lost him, suddenly, to a heart attack as he worked less than hundred yards down the road.
Further down that same road, on the same day we gathered outside to see Nora off on her final journey, another family were grappling with grief. Joe Carragher, a musician and tradesman who worked on the cottage, had been diagnosed with cancer twelve months ago. He died last Thursday morning, aged 58. Neighbours were out directing traffic, as mourners made their way to his home, to sympathise with his wife Geraldine, his mother Ita and their families.
A master plasterer, is what I called Joe, writing about his work on the cottage for the Sunday Times a few years back. His work here is something everyone admires. The soft curves and sweeping lines of lime plaster offer the form of a welcome embrace. An Irish man through and through, we had all smiled passing the orange and white colours of the county flag he’d erected outside the house when Armagh won the All-Ireland in July.
Joe spent a couple of weeks here at the cottage, plastering and repointing, tiling and fixing, always obliging and good humoured, a breath of fresh air in the mess and the dust.
It was after mass at the church in Kilshanny, that I learned of Joe’s passing. I think we are all still in shock.
Nora’s funeral was underway in the church, as Joe’s family accompanied him away for the final time, for cremation in Shannon. I learned from Joe’s death notice that his middle name is Gabriel, the archangel for whom I named the house.
St Gabriel, the angel of Truth.
The photo below is Joe (in the cap) with Martin Tierney, Nora’s son, lifting the heavy range sourced on DoneDeal over the hedge here at the cottage.
The date was July 13, 2018.
As the readings got underway at Nora’s funeral mass, the red admiral butterfly fluttered across the stained glass windows and came to rest on the left lapel of Fr Denis Crosby of the neighbouring parish, Liscannor, seated at the side of the altar. The butterfly rested there on his priestly garments through the Gospel, the homily and Nora’s grandson Stephen Tierney’s touching tribute to a life well lived.
Stephen told stories of how Nora’s constant prayers and intercession kept the family safe, physically and spiritually and how her baking of scones shaped their family gatherings in her home on Sundays. He recounted the removal of raisins from his scones as a youngster, not wanting to offend her, but not wanting to eat them, he dropped them behind the radiator where they ended up on the floor. This continued for a week or two, he said, before a new kitchen custom came to fruition, two sets of scones, one with raisins and one without. These were the typical acts of unspoken kindness that endeared Nora to everyone.
At the consecration, the butterfly took flight again, hovering above the altar for a moment, before gaining height and fluttering without fanfare up toward the church rafters. And then it disappeared.
Here’s what the internet says of it’s significance:
“The red admiral butterfly symbolizes a spiritual awakening, transformation, and renewal. It is a sign of hope and inspiration, as well as freedom and joy.”
Nora had an exquisite Clare accent and the most beautiful turn of phrase, something each of her children inherited. Talking to her daughter Anne at the foot of her coffin at the wake on Saturday night, was like talking to the woman herself.
Nora can be heard chatting with me at her kitchen table in a podcast recorded about Kilshanny, in a link provided below. Not one for fame or fuss, she was still kind enough to acquiesce to being recorded, quizzing me about my family and wondering, were my parents alive? And were they not lonesome after me? We’d poured tea from the same pot that served so many visitors to her cottage, which sits empty now, something the rest of us need to adjust to.
I believe Nora’s spirit is among the angels now. The powerful, almost unnatural warmth of the sun that broke through clouds to beam down upon her family as they lowered her into the ground, a sign surely, of reassurance for them that she is fully at peace and, not far away.
Rest in Peace Nora. Rest in Peace Joe.
In recent weeks, we’ve lost three more precious Kilshanny people; Johnny Driscoll, John Blood and Paddy Williams.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God, Rest in Peace.
*Listen to Nora in her kitchen (from three minutes in) here
**For those waiting for news on the Roy Butler case, the inquest verdict is due later today.
www.cottageacademy.ie
This tribute to your neighbours so well conveyed Louise. May they rest in peace.
Beautifully written,May they Rest in Peace