‘She held my hand the whole way’

Grey sheets of rain, the last remnants of Storm Betty lashed Andy Kelly’s face as he trudged the final steps up the scree-strewn path of Croagh Patrick, the bitter pelt masking the tears of emotion streaming down his cheeks. The downpour began not long after the group of more than 70 started from the pilgrimage point’s carpark shortly before midday on August 19, and it didn’t let up at all for the near six hours it took Andy to make it to the top of the mountain and back to base safely.

The date was significant as it would have marked Andy’s 43rd wedding anniversary.

“She held my hand the whole way,” says Andy of his beloved wife Breege. They were always inseparable and, even after her sad death on December 9, 2022, just 10 weeks after being diagnosis oesophageal cancer, Andy still leans on her for strength and support.

“There went 33 of us down on a bus from Cavan and, when I got below, there were about 45 waiting for us - all friends, I couldn’t believe it.”

Andy felt Breege alongside him on that windswept and rainy reek, and he felt her presence too last Saturday night last (September 30), at The Cross in Stradone, where Andy and his family handed over her almost €35,000. The funds were raised in Breege’s memory for three local charities - Cuan Cancer Care, Cavan-Monaghan Palliative Care, and Friends of Oncology at Cavan General Hospital.

It was as emotional a moment for Andy, knowing the good that would soon be done in his late wife’s name, as the walk up Croagh Patrick itself.

All climbed bar a few who travelled simply to offer support, with Andy himself expected only to manage a small part of the climb. Yet despite the inclement weather conditions, Andy preserved with the help of a close family friend and Breege by his side.

“I had her with me the whole way. I have her with me always, and everyday from when she passed on December 9 last year. We were 43 years married on the 21st of August. That’s why we done it when we did. It took me three hours to get to the top and three minutes less to get back down. I had never done it before, and the weather was atrocious.

“Storm Betty had been the Friday night, and we probably had a half hour of dry, but the rest was rain the whole way. You wouldn’t see the hand in front of you, and the salt blowing in off the sea, it’d cut the eyes of you. I got to the top and my boots were full of water.”

It was a remarkable feat given the conditions.

Even more incredible was the response to the iDonate campaign launched beforehand, which started with a target of €25,000, and ended up far above that.

Steelworker and owner of AJK Steel Ltd Andy hopes the money will help bring relief to a great many others going through the same set of gruelling circumstance as his wife Breege did.

“She never complained, never had a pain. She never let it in on her, even when we knew it was bad. From when she first went into the doctor, she had, as she described, a gnawing feeling around her chest bone. She was only diagnosed with oesophagus cancer on the 21st of September.

“Before that we’d been to Monaghan. I was outside sitting in the car when I got a call that I was needed. The doctor told us there was a lump, it could have been there three to five years. But Breege never knew about it. She passed on the 9th of December, exactly 10 weeks later.”

Andy met his “best friend in life” Breege after he injured himself in a motorcycle accident, aged 17. The pair had been friends, chatting and drawing close at the occasional dance or carnival. But, after she came to visit him in the hospital, Andy knew she was the one. “I said ‘one day I’ll marry that girl!’”

Originally a Crosserlough woman, the couple built a family home in 1979 and married a year later. Andy was 22 and Breege a year older.

Breege was “lovely person” says Andy, “full of happiness” and had a smile for everyone.

“She just had a lovely outlook on life. When the carnivals were over - Stradone, Laragh, Crosskeys, Lavey - I’d to buy a car. It was 12 miles to and back from Crosserlough and I was at that for a few years before I said to her ‘there’s no to time to running there and back the whole time, sure we’ll get married’. And that’s what we did.”

Breege passed away peacefully surrounded by her family at her home in Laragh in the early hours of December 9, 2022.

For organising the fundraiser Andy thanks the organising committee, particularly his friends from the former BNI Breffni Chapter.

Andy is rightly “proud” of being able to support the local charities in Breege’s memory.

“It finished up €11,510 per charity. I’m so proud. I was hiding for 36 weeks before that climb. I’ve a few sheep here, across the road, and I’d go see them early in the morning or late in the evening so I wouldn’t see anyone. But, as soon as I came up climbing that mountain, the next day I walked out proud.

“I wasn’t two steps out before there were four cars pulled up with more donations. For an hour and three quarters I stood talking until my legs started to tremble and I had to hunt them to go count the sheep and get back into the house to sit down. Since that I am so proud to cross that road, and so thankful to anyone who put a cent into this. What’s driving me on now is to try and go on, for the people and for Breege.”