For Essie Fogarty · 18 Sept 2026
I don't really know anything about Gaelic football, never seen a match in my life, but I read this whole piece about her just now and I keep thinking about the part where she still went to watch her nephew captain the team even though she wasn't well. that gets me. we don't have anything like this club volunteer thing here, not really, not the same way, everyone's too busy or too spread out. anyway I don't know why I'm typing all this, I never knew this woman, I'm in California and I've never been to Ireland. I guess I just wanted to say it moved me, the tea making and the sandwiches and the singing on the buses, that's a whole life right there. edited to add, the defibrillator part after her son died, that's the part I keep coming back to actually, not the football at all.