LOZ in Transit and ready for new adventures!!: Weddings & Funerals Part 1

Sunday 13th August, 2006

Exactly a week before I was due to leave for Eire and Spain to attend some largely anticipated weddings, bad news arrived. My cousin Paul Finn had died in a motorcycle accident while on holiday in Germany, he arrived Friday and was killed on the Saturday. Complete shock and numbness ensued.

(picture: Uncle Michael, cousin Lisa, Aunt Joyce, cousin Paul (RIP) Newcastle England, Nov 2004)

Id seen him not a year ago, we had buried my uncle Kieran Finn in Clonbur, we had laughed together, cried together, stood together and supported each other and our families. He had beaten me at pool, over and over, he laughed, i beat him at cards and kept me company at the bar. He called me "couz" in the thickest jordy accent you ever heard and ill always see him as a complete nutter, needless to say we got on well.

We talked about his son, how proud he was to be a Dad, how it had changed his life. We talked about all the mischief we had gotten upto in Sydney and Terrigal when they had come over for Christmas with the rest of his family and of my trip to Newcastle to visit them in 2004 after leaving New Zealand.

On Saturday 12th August Paul Finn, just short of his 33rd Birthday died tragically in Germany.

On Monday I rang the airlines ready to change my ticket and rush to England to the funeral. No need to rush, things are done differently in England I was told, burials are not straight away like Eire and Oz. So we waited, Peggy and Eddie were already in Eire. It was a long wait, there was an inquest in Germany before the remains could be released and to make things harder on my uncle Michael and aunt Joyce and cousin Lisa, no one in the police station could tell them in English what exactly happened or when they could send the remains back to England.

So on Saturday 19th August as planned I flew to Eire and landed in Shannon with uncle Tommy to pick me up on the Sunday. Still no news on the funeral. So I just got on with it, always waiting on news, but it wasn't going to bring back Paul.

I caught up with old friends and family and visited the Cliffs of Moher for the first time ever, I know shocking considering how close Galway is and how they are such a huge tourist attraction, well worth a look, but not as grand as I had expected. Road trip was worth the trip, thanks gals.

It was also hard coming back to Clonbur with no Kieran to welcome you to Kilbeg, it really hit home that no one was in the old house any more. For the past few years it seems as if there has been nothing but deaths and funerals and sadness. Something that I dont want to associate with Ireland.

News of the funeral finally came from England, driving to Dublin, then flying to Newcastle, it was a rough couple of days for the family, but I'm glad I was there, got a good opportunity to meet his friends and give him a send off he would of been proud of. I also got to meet his beautiful son Reece, whom I know will miss his Dad very much.