Mick Gillick from the Black Road,Robinstown ,died over last weekend ,arrived at Dunderry Church at 7.30 on Monday and departed for St,Loman's Cemetery ,Trim,after 11.00 a.m. Mass today.As would be expected the Church was full of friends,neighbours and admirers of a man who lived a full life ,while farming to the highest standards,a tradition his only son Stephen carries to this day.
I knew him socially as,no more than myself,he did appreciate a good pint of Guinness when he had the money and the opportunity.His choice of pub.in Dunderry was Geraghty's and he loved the company of all there especially Hugh Geraghty.
In fact Hugh has lost two great social companions this last week in Mick and Tommy Tuite.
We offer our sincerest sympathies to his loving wife ,Margaret ,his son Stephen aforesaid,his grand daughters Lisa and Aoife,both handy camogie players for Dunderry ,a trait they picked up from their Dunderry father and Killion mother ,also Margaret .
I had the great pleasure of managing them both in the arts of Camogie ,which they mastered with ease and two more determined and decent ladies you wouldn't meet in a long day's walk.
By misfortune I happened to be in Navan Hospital in July 2009 and when I came to found that Mick too was also sick and in the same ward.I was as bet as a man could be,barely able to blink my eyes and Mick too was somewhat under the weather.He was frail and disorientated and confined to a chair ,when not in bed.Even so his memory on all things to do with the land was spot on and he was bang up to date on the price of cattle,a subject on which he was quizzed a few times.
While I had plenty of family visitors and he had too, I used marvel at the devotion his wife displayed towards him.She was there first thing in the morning and last thing at night and she herself was no spring chicken and had her own health problems.She would also spend time with me,visits I enjoyed and which she kept up when I was moved to a different ward than him.Some woman I tell you.As are Stephen and Lisa who went out of their way to be pleasant to me.
Any how we got on fierce well.Mostly he was confined to a chair but constantly had it in his mind that he would die for a pint in Geraghty's .And by God he was determine to break for the border to get it,as it were.
When closing time for visitors came he would watch the exit door like a cat watching a mouse.all the time rocking back and forth and biding his time to break out when the nurses weren't watching.Which they were nearly always as they were wise to him.
He rcruitesd me to the breakout team.I readily agreed even though I could do little more than blink and even needed attention to go to the toilet in my bed ,which was not forthcoming on all occasions humiliatingly.
Anyhow one night he was on the top of his game.Scoped like a hawk and rocked to his feet and out the door like a bullet.Go for it boy I roared to myself,a vision of him somehow making it and entering Geraghty's and calling for pint pleasantly filling my mind,
But too loyal for his own good he came back to get me and was rumbled.I nearly cried I was that heartbroken.
I used promise myself that when ,if ever I got a wheelchair,I would spring him on my lap,head for Dunderry and enter Geraghty's and he would say "two pints please Leo".Now that's what you would call an entrance.
I have no doubt but that he will whet his thirst in the company of the good Lord tonight,
Ar Dheis De go raibh a hanam dilis.
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