7 - Giants' Causeway: 9 September 2024

The Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland was one of the first places in Ireland that Margaret and I visited together.  I was my second visit to Ireland and it was Margaret’s 5^th visit.  Anne Ryan met us at the airport and told us we were going to the Giant’s Causeway.  We piled our bags in her car and she drove straight to the Giant’s Causeway, stopping only briefly for a coffee at Larne.  Within a few hours of arriving at Dublin airport, we were in a bed and breakfast at the Giant’s Causeway.

This was in 2002 and the sheathing on Margaret’s spinal column was not yet showing any signs of the damage it was doing to her ability to walk.  Although the Peace Treaty stopping the Civil War in Northern Ireland had been signed in 1998, the peace it established was still uncertain.  We wandered across this wonderful natural wonder unmolested by guides or by many other tourists.  The experience was memorable.  After wandering through the site, Anne drove us back to her home in Newbridge.

Margaret and I had never managed to return to the Giant’s Causeway.  Today I returned without her.  I had booked a ticket for a clifftop walk along the coast surrounding the Causeway.  It was no surprise that the continuous peace since 1998 had allowed many changes to take place.

The clean, expansive Visitors’ Centre did not exist in 2002.  The closely managed car park surrounding the Visitors Centre did not exist in 2002 either, and neither did the efficient and friendly staff, nor the electric buses ferrying the visitors to the most obvious of the natural wonders there.  Our group got on a bus and we were driven to a spot 4 miles away from the main attraction.  Our wonderful tour guide gave us a talk and then set off along the cliffside track at a rapid pace.  Most of us struggled to keep up.  The track wandered up and down hills, offering steep ascents and descents in various places.  There was so much more to see than we had seen in 2002 - but there was one major drawback.  This time I was on my own.  The experience of 2002 was no more than a memory and could never now be anything else.

It was not just the physical changes such as the Visitors’ Centre that altered my experience today.  Two significant people were missing.  Margaret was dead and Anne might as well be dead.  Seven months after Margaret was pronounced incurable, Anne had found what she thought was a plausible reason to stay away from the woman who had seen Anne as her closest friend.  She claimed to have been offended by something I said and never again came inside our home.  Anne also made sure that all but one of Margaret’s other friends stayed away from our hone too.  Margaret was permitted to meet her previously very close friends only in cafes located away, not in her own home.  Her own home was forbidden territory because her husband lived there.  Although the supposed excuse was that I had said something offensive to Anne, the reality was that every one of them had decided to stay away from Margaret because she was doomed to die. The closeness of the friendship circle before her diagnosis was irrelevant when compared to her death sentence.

Ostensibly Margaret was not cancelled, but only me.  This was a handy excuse which in early February 2021 seemed good enough to last for the 3 or 4 months that they expected Margaret to live. It became increasingly implausible as Margaret continued to defy her death sentence.  For the last 2 ½ years of her life, Margaret battled to stay alive knowing that she no longer had any friends who would come anywhere near her home – even when she became unable to leave her home.

When Margaret eventually died on 22 August 2023, Anne refused to come to her “friend’s” funeral and although other former friends came to the funeral, they stayed away from me and I had no knowledge of their presence until I saw their names in the condolence book.

So today was filled with more than the usual array of memories.  As I struggled uphill in the driving rain and gale force winds, there was at least one person in addition to Margaret who should have been there but was not.  Whereas Margaret no longer had a body to enable her to tell me she was present, Anne had no such excuse.  Anne was absent because she chose to be absent.

I had specifically invited Anne to be present who I scattered Margaret’s ashes on top of Croagh Patrick.  She ignored the invitation and refused the opportunity to say her final goodbye to Margaret, someone whom she had once claimed was her very good friend.  She had also ignored my specific invitation for her to be present at the funeral.  I can only presume she was too embarrassed by her own behaviour to come to the funeral or to Croagh Patrick.

Of course I could be wrong about Anne’s reasons for cancelling Margaret.  Perhaps it was not because Margaret had been sentenced to death, but if Anne had a different reason, she certainly never told either Margaret or me.

Shame on you Anne for doing so much immense harm to those who thought you were a close friend

The most ironic aspect of Anne’s behaviour is that the person on whom she has inflicted the most harm is herself.  I have some simple advice for you Anne.  Stop inflicting harm on yourself and on others.  It is very bad for your health.  Stop harming yourself and you will automatically stop harming others.