Memoir
The Diviner: Joe Cassidy
Joe Cassidy does not have what you might call a regular 9-5. As a diviner and healer he practises an ancient and mysterious craft, working up and down the country with people, animals, houses and land. He deals with all manner of cases and conditions – from depressed horses to disturbed children, fairy forts to neighbour's ill-will, even with that most modern of conditions, depression. His enigmatic gifts of insight and healing have led him to work on over 5,000 cases over the past decade or more since he began to practice in earnest. His book The Diviner has recently been published by Penguin, revealing his story.
The path to his current life wasn't straightforward. After a rocky start to life - a traumatic birth - Joe grew up a sensitive boy with a love of animals and a strong sense of intuition. While aware of his difference, he kept it carefully under wraps. Although he married and started a family he struggled to come to terms with his abilities. Believing he may have a sixth sense was one thing, announcing it to the world was another. Keeping this side of himself hidden had negative consequences for Joe and for much of this time his health was poor – and worse, undiagnosed. Fatigue and physical pain meant he couldn't work full time. Ultimately a dramatic incident in hospital prompted an appointment with a neurologist, who urged him to accept his gift. Although his family had some initial doubts, Joe set up soon after as a healer and diviner. His health improved and he has never looked back.
One Front Infront of The Other, Teena Gates
“Today I got my first real sight of Island Peak. It’s a bloody mountain. I mean a craggy, icy, jagged, real life mountain, at 20,300 feet – higher than Everest Base Camp and a technical climb needing harness and crampons and ice-picks. What am I doing? Who am I kidding? I stared in disbelief at the summit and ridge off in the distance, as the team traversed the countryside between Chuckung and Laboshe. With the challenge to Island Peak looming, Team Hope gathered in the evening for a technical briefing from expedition leader Pat Falvey. Our challenge was now switching from trekking to technical. Looking around I could see for the first time that my fellow colleagues were also feeling doubtful and tired. We have reached two of our three key objectives and are now wondering about moving to the next level. A haunting, moving, soul-searching day…”
The faces sitting around me at the camp table reflected the sombre tone of the blog I’d just emailed from the Himalayas, to the newsroom back at 98FM in Dublin. ‘You really have to write about this when we get back home’ one of my colleagues from the Hope/Everest Expedition remarked, and perhaps that was when the seed was sown for ‘One Foot in Front of The Other’.Evening entertainment was not very plentiful sitting in a tent on the side of an icy mountain and the group persuaded me to read my blogs each evening after dinner. Sometimes we’d chuckle, but there were hard days too, when we all chewed silently on the doubts that grab your mind at 20,000 feet.
Getting back home to Dublin, Pat Falvey (pictured below) reminded me of the night hanging on the side of a cliff when the idea of a book was born.I mentioned the plan to my older brother, and between them, the two men kept on reminding me.I could quite well call it nagging, but I’m so glad now that they did, it would feel uncharitable to complain! My brother arrived into Dublin from London to visit me with a new laptop under his arm – a present to ‘get me started’ and then Pat invited me to come and stay at his Mountain Lodge under the shadow of Carrauntoohil in Killarney to ‘get me started’ and finally, I decided that the time had come.
Dead Man Talking, Mark Heffernan
Sometimes you meet someone who leaves a lasting impression. Mark Heffernan is one of those people.
At only twenty-eight he has fitted more success into his life than most people ca
n even dream of. Growing up in Carew Park, Southill, a local authority estate in Limerick, leaving school at sixteen, by the time he was eighteen, Mark had set up in business as a DJ and had over fifty DJ’s working for him, covering over 90 per cent of DJ gigs in Limerick.
Success breeds success and Mark was delighted when pirate radio station Kiss FM approached him to do a weekly show. Within a month he had taken the radio station over and rebranded it as Wave FM. A natural event organiser, he began running teenage events alongside the radio station At the time he was sharing an office with Roy Collins. Roy gave Mark the Federation branding he had used for a club in Blackpool - Mark's Federation was a huge success. Over 1,000 teenagers regularly attended the events, to see some of the biggest acts in the industry. Eventually they launched events in Cork, Tipperary and Enniskillen and The Gerry Ryan Show even got on board to recommend them.
Then in October 2007, at the age of 23, Mark was approached by Joe Clarke and Pat Barry of the Trinity Rooms in Limerick – one of the top clubs in the country – with a proposal to open a superclub in Newcastle West, Limerick. Mark jumped at the chance and within forty-eight hours they had signed a three-year lease.
Then it all started to go wrong - just as spectacularly as it had gone right.
My Journey With Angels by Patricia Buckley
Down a narrow dusty back road where pretty houses are scattered intermittently and fields are home to herds and hay, lies a charming yellow bungalow with two stone angels perched proudly on the front wall. More inviting, however, is the petite, slim, dark haired lady who is waving enthusiastically towards my car. A warm hug and a broad beaming smile, is enough to break the ice and dismiss the usual formal introductions and instantly the atmosphere is one of ease.
Patricia Buckley’s home displays a cozy and peaceful ambiance with perfectly placed ornaments which decorate her home. Statues of angels adorn the shelves and as she leads me out to her purpose built ‘Angel’ room out the back; it’s hard to ignore the small grotto to the rear of the garden where a statue of Our Lady and some fragrant blooming roses sit quietly in front of a picturesque view of Duleek.
Once inside, Patricia Buckley slips her neat frame into the chair and gazes up at the shiny imposing sword which is pinned tightly to a frame on the wall. “It’s the sword of Michael the Archangel,” she tells me.
From as far back as she can remember, Patricia says she has been able to see angels and spirits. It was something she took for granted as a child.
Patrick McGinley - That Unearthly Valley
I started thinking about my memoir a year before I sat down to write it. First, I made a list in no particular order of all the topics and incidents I thought I might include. When I could think of nothing else to add, I put my jottings in an order that seemed to make some sort of sense. Looking at my list, I realised that I had three stories to tell, or perhaps three facets of the same story:
1. The Donegal glen where I was born and how it has changed during my lifetime;
2. The changes that have occurred in my own life over the past sixty years;
3. My changing relationship with my native glen.
Since everything I had jotted down in my first list would not fit into my scheme, I dropped those items I considered to be irrelevant.
Nevertheless, I soon discovered that writing a memoir is not as straightforward as I had imagined. Life as we all live it from day to day doesn’t seem to have much structure, shape or direction. Most of the time it is just one thing after another. Some philosophers say life lacks meaning, yet in reflecting on the past and in writing a memoir you inevitably impose on it some shape and meaning. This you do willy-nilly by selecting those incidents in your life that seem to you to be important.
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