Sunday with Miriam RTE Radio 1
Liveline RTE Radio 1
Everybody knows of Donegal woman Geraldine Mullan for all the wrong reasons – a mother who lost her children and a wife who lost her husband.
Geraldine is much more than that. She spoke frankly to Miriam O’Callaghan about the day when everything changed in an instant.
The family from Donegal were on a day out in Derry in August 2020.
On the way home, their car plunged into Lough Foyle and Geraldine was the only survivor.
She lost her husband John, 49, and their children Tomas, 14, and Amelia, 6.
It was a day out before the end of the summer holidays, she told Miriam.
They had intended to go to Fermanagh to climb the “Stairway to Heaven”, she said with just a touch of irony.
But the weather was bad and they opted for Derry. It was a lovely day and then, she said, they drove into the “perfect storm”. The weather was atrocious, the worst tide in Lough Foyle in years.
As she went through what happened that night, it’s clear that she has lived this over and over again.
She was completely honest and grateful to coastguard Kevin Barr who saved her.
“I'm here because of Kevin. He got to me in the water and held onto me. I will admit there was a time that I didn't want him to hold onto me .... I had lost everything.
“I asked him to let me go... he held onto me and said ‘Geraldine I can't let you go’.”
But, she said, because of the rescuers’ efforts, she got the bodies of her husband and children. And there are people in Donegal who have never had that, she said.
“There are others still waiting.
“But I could bring them home and say goodbye to them.”
It could not but have been a heartbreaking interview.
But what she showed was courage. She has gone back to work as a nurse in oncology.
She is giving back to her community.
Up until then she had heard that your life can change in a matter of seconds, but now she understood, she said.
The idea of a new national holiday to celebrate the pandemic front-line workers is getting a lot of air time across Ireland.
Among those to back the suggestion was one Imelda May who rang Joe Duffy on Liveline. She’d be all for a Brigid’s day, she said, not just the saint but the pagan goddess so that everyone can celebrate.
Mind you, the weather has put people off – February is not the warmest of times.
But May was having none of that.
She also told Joe that she was calling in, not as a celebrity but as a punter like all the rest. Brigid’s day wasn’t her idea, she pointed out, she was just joining in with the others backing the idea.
“I just felt, like any member of the public, if you want something done, you call Joe Duffy like everybody else,” she said … and if that wasn’t a buttering up, what could be?
