The Haunting
Not long ago, on holiday in the West of Ireland, I started waking in the small hours of the morning, afraid there was a ghost in the room. Given that I don’t even believe in ghosts, in the cold light of day, I laughed it off. But when it happened again, I found myself unsettled, and on edge: dreading the night. And on the third morning, on an early walk, I heard a question from my own heart: “ What is it that you are really haunted by?” And the answer came. Today, my father is gone from this world for two years. In the last few months, I have been noticing changes in the swell and ebb of grief. The waters have become calmer. And yet, at the same time, there’s an undeniable truth I have often felt swept up, possessed even, by a struggle beyond myself. And at the moment I called that a haunting, something else began to whisper, calling for me to reclaim it as my own. Oh, Danny boy, the pipes the pipes are calling. From glen to glen, and down the mountain side The last ti
