I love listening to Marian Finucane’s radio show. This morning she was talking to Nell McCafferty, who is recovering from a bypass operation, and is only twelve months on from losing her mother. I was saddened to hear Nell speak of her ambivalence about whether or not she wanted to live, having a cigarette yesterday, and saying that she could do with a therapist to work it out, but couldn’t afford one.
Ever since I read her brave, painstakingly honest, funny, and sad autobiography “Nell“, I have a soft place in my heart for her, and I have a sense of how devastating her mother’s death would be to her. From my first hilarious memory of her on the Late Late Show in the seventies, being brought on as a dungareed feminist and given a ridiculous “makeover”, with makeup and a gúna deas, to reading her fiery impassioned columns in the Irish Times, In Dublin and Hot Press, to seeing her speak in the Hirschfeld Centre and cracking us up with her razor sharp humour, she’s way up there in my world of people who matter. It’s characteristic of the woman to be so blisteringly honest about her deathwish, but I can’t help but hope that she finds some way out of her doldrums. I ask this as a therapist: is therapy the only route out of an existential crisis, and is it a luxury or a necessity when someone so talented as Nell could shrug her life off without, seemingly, much regret?
12th Feb 2008: I’ve just been reprimanded by Nell who says that she was never forced into anything, most especially dungarees! My apologies Nell!
April 2008: Nell speaks on RTÉ news about Nuala O’Faolain’s interview with Marian Finucane.
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“her ambivalence about whether or not she wanted to live, having a cigarette yesterday, and saying that she could do with a therapist to work it out, but couldn’t afford one”
That is sad, lets hope she gets sorted out.
Alanon? offers a framework,
Pema Chodron?
read her?
Another love?
S
The last time I met Nell I was with my husband and Nuala O Faoillean. Out of the four of us three of us have contacted lung cancer. I just want to say how sorry I was to hear of Nuala’s news.My husband had the same small cell cancer in the brain and was lucid right up to the end. He suffered no pain.
I am battling away with chemo and am forever hopeful.
To Sheila
Though I don’t know you, I was very moved by your comment. You are in my prayers. Take care and God bless
Thank you Mary Hand for your kind comments.
Sheila
nell may have offended or annoyed the ‘rose tainted glasses brigade’ by her comments on how the females of ireland were treated. But thanks to her we are slowly coming into the modern world, so Thank you nell. your welcome to my home anytime for dinner,chat & a fag as you have a fan club of ladies that think your a wise old owl……
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[...] had with Nuala O’Faolain, and its aftermath, compelling and persuasive. Last year I heard her on Marian Finucane, talking about how she was smoking after her heart bypass operation, wished she had enough money to [...]
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