Cuairtíocht is a word as Gaeilge for visiting, paying a call, or what is described in some parts of the country as rambling over to a neighbour or a friend for a chat. It was commonplace in rural Ireland of the past, but much less so now.
This is how Irish speaker Tomás O’Flatharta from Corr na Móna describes his weekly visit on a Thursday to chat with Páraic Rua Coyne, who lives in nearby Clonbur in Co Galway.
Tomás is a volunteer with ALONE, the national organisation supporting older people to age at home. One of the services they provide is a visiting support and befriending service that provides regular visits to an older person in the local community.
ALONE says the initiative is really about friendship, practical support and providing links to local initiatives and activities.
Range of services
It’s just one of a range of services the organisation offers to reach out to older people who are isolated, lonely, frail, ill, alone, or experiencing other difficulties.
For some older people, this could be the only contact they have with another person that day, so the phone call or visit means everything to them, according to ALONE.
Meeting the two men recently over tea and cake in Corr na Móna, looking out on Lough Corrib, there is a lovely, easy conversation between the two friends with mutual respect and time for each other. Both are clearly proud of where they come from and their native tongue.
ALONE volunteer befriender Tomás O’Flatharta helps Páraic Rua Coyne feed his cattle near his homeplace at Crinlinn East, Corr na Móna. \ Sean Lydon
They break into Gaeilge throughout the conversation when it’s clear the word is not coming in English or simply because both are thinking in Irish as it is their first language and how they normally converse.
“It’s about two years since I joined ALONE as a volunteer. I saw it in the newsletter in Corr na Móna chapel, and I rang up and did some training,” explains Tomás, who retired in 2019.
Tomás previously worked as a development officer in Forbacha in Galway and in Donegal with Údarás na Gaeltachta.He was later matched up with Páraic, who had moved into a community-run housing scheme for older people, located in the grounds of the former convent and current health centre in Clonbur. Tomás is delighted with how it has worked out, and it’s clear, although in a quieter way, that Páraic is too.
Enjoying the chats
“You see, this works both ways. I get as much satisfaction chatting to Páraic [as he does]. I enjoy his company – we talk about lots of things: sometimes football, sometimes local knowledge, sometimes funny news, or things from back when I was growing up,” says Tomás, who originally hails from Coill Sáile, close to Cill Chiaráin, but has been living in Corr na Móna nearly 20 years.
“We meet on Thursday from 12pm to 1pm. I do some shopping for Páraic if he needs something or help with forms because he doesn’t have a computer.”
“I do, yeah,” Páraic says when asked if he looks forward to the visits. “We often chat about the football,” he says, smiling shyly. A proud Galway man, living very close to the Mayo border, he tells Irish Country Living that he hopes his home county will win an All-Ireland football final soon, although he is not happy with the current management or how they used star forward Damian Comer in last year’s final loss to Armagh.
Hailing from the picturesque Crinlinn East area of Corr na Móna, Páraic brings Irish Country Living to see his cattle. He comes out to see them every day with the help of his neighbours and friends in the area. His sister Mary lives in New Zealand.
We meet on Thursday from 12pm to 1pm. I do some shopping for Páraic if he needs something or help with forms because he doesn’t have a computer
Páraic says he decided to move into Clonbur because as he got older, he was conscious there was no mobile phone coverage on the farm.
“Nobody could ring me, or I couldn’t ring out if anything happened,” he says, relaying a story about a relation who was injured on the hills near him, and only for the phone and signal he was in serious trouble. It is at least half a mile up the road from his home place before you can get any sort of coverage, he says.
Encouraged to put his name down for the community housing scheme, he’s happy he did, as a place became available in the eight-home project, which links in with a nearby day centre for meals twice a week.
“In a way I was glad [to move into Clonbur], but I go back [home] every day,” he says. “I’m near everything—the church, the post office, everything—and there is [mobile phone] coverage,” he adds.
Growing up, it was “hard times but happy times” on the farm and plenty of tough work in the fields and the bog.
“Everyone had to cut hay with a scythe; well, not everyone, but they would be waiting weeks for a tractor, and they would have it saved by then.
“We cut turf with a sleán, we’d shear sheep and gather them in. You could be four or five days looking for some of them on the hills. There were no fences that time. You would walk miles and miles,” he says.
Jack of all trades
After leaving school at 14, he jokes that he was “a jack of all trades, master of none” working on the buildings all around Galway and farming. He spent a short time in England, and while there, went to London to see Muhammed Ali fight in an exhibition match in the Royal Albert Hall.
Quietly spoken and wise, Páraic is at the same time full of good humour and stories, recalling the open fire, electricity coming in the 1960s, his school days, and yarns from going to traditional music festivals that has us all chuckling.
In fact, Tomás jokes that because of his love of traditional music and singing, Páraic is actually out and about more than he is.
ALONE volunteer befriender Tomás O’Flatharta helps Páraic Rua Coyne feed his cattle near his homeplace at Crinlinn East, Corr na Móna. \ Sean Lydon
Both men speak about the Irish language being part of them and each wonder about its future with far fewer younger people, and in some cases, older people, speaking it.
Tomás believes it should be taught as a spoken language and there should be a separate class in school for pupils to speak daily and then another class for those who want to learn grammar, literature, etc. Students should be able to speak their native language after 13 years in school, he maintains.
Deeply embedded in the local area, the pair also speak about the need to attract employment into the area to ensure young people come back to live in Connemara.
Speaking about how they connected, Tomás says, “I’m sure there are farmers and other people out there that maybe don’t know about this intiative run by ALONE.
“My situation is that I’m not a doctor or a nurse or a home help—we just laugh and talk,” concludes Tomás, who will see Páraic on 25 December when he brings him Christmas dinner.
Is eagraíocht náisiúnta í ALONE, a bhunaigh fear dóiteáin Bhaile Átha Cliath Willie Bermingham sna 1970idí, a chuireann ar chumas daoine scothaosta dul in aois sa bhaile.
Tá gréasán náisiúnta foirne agus oibrithe deonacha ann a sholáthraíonn córas comhtháite comhordaithe tacaíochta, tacaíochtaí praiticiúla, cairdeas, seirbhísí éagsúla gutháin, oideas sóisialta, tithíocht le tacaíocht agus teicneolaíocht chúnta.Má tá comhairle, tacaíocht, faisnéis nó obair dheonach de dhíth ort, cuir glaoch ar líne náisiúnta tacaíochta agus atreoraithe ALONE 0818 222 024.
Cuairtíocht is a word as Gaeilge for visiting, paying a call, or what is described in some parts of the country as rambling over to a neighbour or a friend for a chat. It was commonplace in rural Ireland of the past, but much less so now.
This is how Irish speaker Tomás O’Flatharta from Corr na Móna describes his weekly visit on a Thursday to chat with Páraic Rua Coyne, who lives in nearby Clonbur in Co Galway.
Tomás is a volunteer with ALONE, the national organisation supporting older people to age at home. One of the services they provide is a visiting support and befriending service that provides regular visits to an older person in the local community.
ALONE says the initiative is really about friendship, practical support and providing links to local initiatives and activities.
Range of services
It’s just one of a range of services the organisation offers to reach out to older people who are isolated, lonely, frail, ill, alone, or experiencing other difficulties.
For some older people, this could be the only contact they have with another person that day, so the phone call or visit means everything to them, according to ALONE.
Meeting the two men recently over tea and cake in Corr na Móna, looking out on Lough Corrib, there is a lovely, easy conversation between the two friends with mutual respect and time for each other. Both are clearly proud of where they come from and their native tongue.
ALONE volunteer befriender Tomás O’Flatharta helps Páraic Rua Coyne feed his cattle near his homeplace at Crinlinn East, Corr na Móna. \ Sean Lydon
They break into Gaeilge throughout the conversation when it’s clear the word is not coming in English or simply because both are thinking in Irish as it is their first language and how they normally converse.
“It’s about two years since I joined ALONE as a volunteer. I saw it in the newsletter in Corr na Móna chapel, and I rang up and did some training,” explains Tomás, who retired in 2019.
Tomás previously worked as a development officer in Forbacha in Galway and in Donegal with Údarás na Gaeltachta.He was later matched up with Páraic, who had moved into a community-run housing scheme for older people, located in the grounds of the former convent and current health centre in Clonbur. Tomás is delighted with how it has worked out, and it’s clear, although in a quieter way, that Páraic is too.
Enjoying the chats
“You see, this works both ways. I get as much satisfaction chatting to Páraic [as he does]. I enjoy his company – we talk about lots of things: sometimes football, sometimes local knowledge, sometimes funny news, or things from back when I was growing up,” says Tomás, who originally hails from Coill Sáile, close to Cill Chiaráin, but has been living in Corr na Móna nearly 20 years.
“We meet on Thursday from 12pm to 1pm. I do some shopping for Páraic if he needs something or help with forms because he doesn’t have a computer.”
“I do, yeah,” Páraic says when asked if he looks forward to the visits. “We often chat about the football,” he says, smiling shyly. A proud Galway man, living very close to the Mayo border, he tells Irish Country Living that he hopes his home county will win an All-Ireland football final soon, although he is not happy with the current management or how they used star forward Damian Comer in last year’s final loss to Armagh.
Hailing from the picturesque Crinlinn East area of Corr na Móna, Páraic brings Irish Country Living to see his cattle. He comes out to see them every day with the help of his neighbours and friends in the area. His sister Mary lives in New Zealand.
We meet on Thursday from 12pm to 1pm. I do some shopping for Páraic if he needs something or help with forms because he doesn’t have a computer
Páraic says he decided to move into Clonbur because as he got older, he was conscious there was no mobile phone coverage on the farm.
“Nobody could ring me, or I couldn’t ring out if anything happened,” he says, relaying a story about a relation who was injured on the hills near him, and only for the phone and signal he was in serious trouble. It is at least half a mile up the road from his home place before you can get any sort of coverage, he says.
Encouraged to put his name down for the community housing scheme, he’s happy he did, as a place became available in the eight-home project, which links in with a nearby day centre for meals twice a week.
“In a way I was glad [to move into Clonbur], but I go back [home] every day,” he says. “I’m near everything—the church, the post office, everything—and there is [mobile phone] coverage,” he adds.
Growing up, it was “hard times but happy times” on the farm and plenty of tough work in the fields and the bog.
“Everyone had to cut hay with a scythe; well, not everyone, but they would be waiting weeks for a tractor, and they would have it saved by then.
“We cut turf with a sleán, we’d shear sheep and gather them in. You could be four or five days looking for some of them on the hills. There were no fences that time. You would walk miles and miles,” he says.
Jack of all trades
After leaving school at 14, he jokes that he was “a jack of all trades, master of none” working on the buildings all around Galway and farming. He spent a short time in England, and while there, went to London to see Muhammed Ali fight in an exhibition match in the Royal Albert Hall.
Quietly spoken and wise, Páraic is at the same time full of good humour and stories, recalling the open fire, electricity coming in the 1960s, his school days, and yarns from going to traditional music festivals that has us all chuckling.
In fact, Tomás jokes that because of his love of traditional music and singing, Páraic is actually out and about more than he is.
ALONE volunteer befriender Tomás O’Flatharta helps Páraic Rua Coyne feed his cattle near his homeplace at Crinlinn East, Corr na Móna. \ Sean Lydon
Both men speak about the Irish language being part of them and each wonder about its future with far fewer younger people, and in some cases, older people, speaking it.
Tomás believes it should be taught as a spoken language and there should be a separate class in school for pupils to speak daily and then another class for those who want to learn grammar, literature, etc. Students should be able to speak their native language after 13 years in school, he maintains.
Deeply embedded in the local area, the pair also speak about the need to attract employment into the area to ensure young people come back to live in Connemara.
Speaking about how they connected, Tomás says, “I’m sure there are farmers and other people out there that maybe don’t know about this intiative run by ALONE.
“My situation is that I’m not a doctor or a nurse or a home help—we just laugh and talk,” concludes Tomás, who will see Páraic on 25 December when he brings him Christmas dinner.
Is eagraíocht náisiúnta í ALONE, a bhunaigh fear dóiteáin Bhaile Átha Cliath Willie Bermingham sna 1970idí, a chuireann ar chumas daoine scothaosta dul in aois sa bhaile.
Tá gréasán náisiúnta foirne agus oibrithe deonacha ann a sholáthraíonn córas comhtháite comhordaithe tacaíochta, tacaíochtaí praiticiúla, cairdeas, seirbhísí éagsúla gutháin, oideas sóisialta, tithíocht le tacaíocht agus teicneolaíocht chúnta.Má tá comhairle, tacaíocht, faisnéis nó obair dheonach de dhíth ort, cuir glaoch ar líne náisiúnta tacaíochta agus atreoraithe ALONE 0818 222 024.
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