Sile Mulligan

By AM Saturday, December 25, 2021

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Anthony McIntyre ⚱ remembers a dear friend who died last month.

Painting In Memory Of Sile
by the artist Jene Hinds

Christmas here is just not the same without Sile. She reveled in it. She adored being showered with gifts and loved giving them to others. She was godmother to my daughter Fírinne and then when Dolours Price died Sile stepped in to assume her role as godmother to my son Rónán – can’t leave him an orphan was her reasoning! That was Sile.

For the most part Sile is the reason we came to live in Drogheda. My wife Carrie and her had been friends before I struck gold with the title of a Doors song, LA Woman. When Carrie first came to Ireland, Sile’s home in Drogheda was the first roof she slept under. When Fírinne was not yet two she and I stayed in Moneymore where Sile lived. We later stayed with her in Dublin. Whether with us in Belfast, Drogheda or Dublin, she always insisted on one thing – buy Irish, African, Chinese, Italian, East European or whatever so long as the dish is palatable to your taste buds. Just don’t buy English! She had a fierce republican streak and was wholly unyielding to any form of British involvement in Ireland.

She had an intense dislike of Fine Gael which she felt had prolonged the North’s violent political conflict by underwriting the British state narrative. This led to me sending her Valentine cards "signed" by Enda Kenny. It is a wonder I ever received anything other than a box of sawdust at Christmas. A diehard Sinn Fein supporter and one time member, the only person she recognised as President was Gerry Adams whom she would insist on referring to as The Pres, more for the purpose of winding me up. She always said The Pres would fix the Blueshirts once he got his feet under the table in Áras an Uachtaráin.

When she came to stay with us a while back and decided not to leave, we loved it. She moved her cats in as well, playfully accusing me of doing them in each time one of them died. My protestations that it had been I who rushed them to the vet the minute there was a problem - and brought them back alive - met with a dismissive wave of the hand. I was an atheist anti-Shinner of whom no better could be expected!

On top of being seriously into Sinn Fein she was a devout Catholic. That should have been an incendiary enough combination to send the sparks flying. It never did. As with her political convictions she managed to be outward about her religious faith rather than in your face. She took merciless ribbing here from Rónán who would tease her over some of the more irrational tenets of Catholicism. Fírinne would be more cerebral in her discussions with Sile. As always, her fallback position was that the children had been much too under the baleful influence of their father who couldn’t save a cat never mind a soul. Still, she had hope that eventually God would rescue them from me! Unfailingly, this would meet with a quickfire blah, blah, blah from Rónán.

She had a sharp sense of humour rather than a wicked one: the word wicked and Sile don’t sit well together. Too kind, considerate, compassionate, generous, to be anything other than authentic, Sile radiated love for those she was close to. My wife often said that she was the best thing ever to happen to our family, how she taught the kids love not faith despite being religious herself.

A magnificent legal brain because of her training, she was an invaluable source of help to the work I was tasked with doing as part of the Independent Workers Union. Frequently she would draft letters to employers soberly spelling out the issues before springing the trap. My task was to sign them. She guided me through legalese with acumen. She could strategise a case, and like the late Gerry Corbett who also died this year, she had this ability to intuit the optimum point for settling, even if I preferred going off in a different and most likely less productive direction.

Over the course of her working life, she had built up an impressive CV with several law firms. The comments and tributes from some of her colleagues in the profession on her passing conveyed the deep impression she had made on them and provided insight into the high esteem in which she was held. Sile, fiercely private, unassuming and non-intrusive, still managed to reach into many lives during her own.

When she took ill last year, I sensed right away she had bowel cancer, rather than the sciatica that had previously tormented her. I insisted on her pushing hard to be seen by consultants. Covid was raging and at times the delays seemed endless. She went through a difficult course of chemo, telling me that had she known how arduous it was going to be she would have declined it and faced her fate. After what seemed a successful operation, she returned home. But something was not right. There was a breakdown in communication somewhere along the line and her wound went untreated for a number of days. I told her there was an infection which required serious hospital care. But she was averse to becoming an in-patient once again. 

My wife took matters into her own hands and arranged a readmission. I travelled down with Sile to the Mater in Dublin in the back of a Knights Of Malta ambulance one cold dark morning in October. She was in pain the whole way. I had made this journey with her before and had no reason to think it was not a return trip. I spent the day at the hospital, wheeling her around, explaining to hospital staff exactly what she had been enduring. The discomfort was impairing her ability to explain at length her experience. The only time she came to life with a mixture of animation and exasperation was when the hospital porter asked me is your mother ok? She seems to be distressed. Much of the remainder of the day was spent with me reminding her of that. It at least saw a smile breakthrough an otherwise pained expression.

Myself and my daughter between us managed to get into the Mater to see her on a couple of occasions. Whether on the visits or during the daily phone calls she would constantly tell me she would be home in a day or two. On my last visit to her before Covid struck, and despite a mild heart attack, I had no reason to doubt her. She was in brilliant form. Still attached to an ambulatory device for draining the infection, she told me to make sure I found something to replace the Harry Bosch series which she had enjoyed so much while ill. Two weeks later it was all over. First, she seemed confused during our daily phone chats. Then the calls stopped, and we learned she was sedated after experiencing a second heart attack. We got a call early one Saturday morning to come into the hospital to say our farewells. A friend immediately drove us to the Mater where we met our daughter. In the ICU we got our son on the call from Arizona as we all said our goodbyes. She had run out of road. I had been at the bedside before where the patient was in the final hours of their life. I knew the terminus was within touching distance.

On our way to the bus and shortly after we passed some anti-Covid measures demonstration in O’Connell Street, my wife took the call that Sile had died. Our journey home was a sombre one, my wife angrily remarking that Sile had just succumbed to Covid on a ventilator, fighting for each breath, while a few hundred yards away people were fighting for the right to be stupid and selfish.

Sile’s ashes are now at home with us. My wife opened the Christmas morning around the tree with a tribute to Sile, her ashes present, a painting from my wife’s friend in memory of her close by. The early gifts sent to her from the US, opened first. It was a dignified way of having her absence marked by her presence.

Given her deep religiosity a mass will be offered in her memory and a memorial event to celebrate her life will take place. The venues for both shall be in Drogheda. This salt of the earth "true Dub", as my wife described her, will live on in the memories of those to whom she meant most.

 ⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.