Austerity Update

Called to see Korea Mc Donagh today.He wasn't in the best of form and confined to the bed.I wrote about this man before.He is in his mid eighties now and fought with the USA army in the Korean War,where ha was missing ,presumed dead,for seven years.He was even waked,before turning up alive ,having been a prisoner of war for the duration.I don't know how he was treated for those years but strongly suspect that what happened to him was not good.Jimmy Coogan sang at his "wake".The irony is that having survived all that hardship and cheated death in the battlefields and camps,he nearly met his Maker while having a whizz in a rural boreen the far side of Athboy,when a car went out of control and somersaulted on top of him.You couldn't make it up.He was crippled by the accident and I met him in the disabled shelter in the Showgrounds two years age when we both attended a Dunderry Championship match ,he to support his grandsons T.J.and Martin Garry.We lost.
I was well received by his daughter Anne,who is a peach and the spit of her sister Monica.We had a long and friendly chat over a cup of Tay and home baked brown bread.Don't understand why the single men of Ireland are not beating a path to the door.Maybe they are.A lovely lady.
Also met for the first time a cousin of my own.Kate Mc Donagh ,also a beautiful young lady with whom I felt an immediate empathy even before I knew we were related.She has the beautiful skin for which my grandmother Kate Mallon was noted.Whether by accident or design they share the same name.
Anne informed me that another grandson of Korea Michael has since gone to Australia to join the others.That elevates his status from three to four,if this is a suitable word.