A toast to absent friends

It's a time of the year when, however things might be just now, or have been in the past, we celebrate one of the most important attributes of our humanity, writes Brian Byrne. Hope. An optimism that things will be good, or even better in the next 12 months for ourselves and those we love.

That we can look forward at all is a wonderful thing. But equally so is the fact that we can look back. That we can remember, especially remember people. And for this post, it's just to simply remember those who have left us during 2012. A written toast in the new year, if you wish. To absent friends.

The Diary doesn't get to record all the deaths in the parish. Partly because your editor may be away at various times, or sometimes he just misses the occasion for no particular reason. But as a community we lost more than two score people last year. Some of them were close to me. All were close to someone.

I do believe that those who have left us will always live as long as they are in somebody's memory. So for this morning, let us remember Phil McGrath and Tom Healy who passed on in January of last year; Patricia Berney and Collette Berney who died in February; and Joan Purves, Peter Keogh, Mary Foley, Jim Mackey and Breda Aspell who left us in March.

In April it was the turn of Bernard Wailes, not of this town but whose work many decades ago has left a lasting mark in Kilcullen. Anne Price and Sean Byrne also departed that month.

We noted the deaths of former resident Marie Seymour and of Gerry Brady in July, and in August the passing of my own aunt, Kathryn O'Reilly. Richard Williams and Maureen Powell departed this life in September, while in October we lost Maggie Kelly.

A once-familiar figure from the early days of The Hideout, Joe O'Halloran, died in November, as did one of our truly unforgettables, Hugh Peacocke. Elizabeth Aspell also left us that month, as did another who had quietly built a larger than life community legacy, Dermot O'Shea. And finally in December, it was the turn of Frances Keegan.

For all of them, and any we may have missed, we give thanks for their lives, wish peace to those they left behind, and place their names with love in our community's memory.