Shapes Of Grief

Julia Samuel’s book Grief Works contains a wealth of information and wisdom on the process of grief, grounded in years of experience as a Grief Therapist and with deep awareness of how grief can be for many people. In this inspiring conversation, Julia and Liz talk about the paradox of grief -  “The essence of grief is that we are forced, through death, to confront a reality we inherently rej...

On September 30th 2014, Sheila and Barry Boland learned that their beloved 3 year-old son Oisín had an incurable brain tumour and had only weeks to live. Treatment could buy them some more time, but Sheila and Barry took a road less travelled and decided instead to focus on making every day special for their beloved boy. Five years later, Sheila opens up to Liz about the incredible experience that...

On January 10th 2007, just 24 hours after five men lost their lives in an Irish vessel called the Pere Charles, just a few miles down the coast, another boat was to run into difficulty resulting in the loss of two more lives. In this conversation, I speak with Helen Bohan who’s brother Ger Bohan was the skipper on that second vessel, the Honeydew II. Helen talks of the impact of this sudden and tr...

Back in the Winter of 2018, when I was planning the launch of the Shapes Of Grief podcast, two other women in Ireland were doing the same.  Venetia Quick and Sasha Hamrogue launched the Grief Encounters podcast at the same time.  It was lovely to finally meet with Venetia (unfortunately Sasha wasn’t there that day) and share experiences of our past few months hosting the podcasts and wha...

When Helen was 5, her baby brother Martin died in a cot death. She remembers his little white coffin being put into the neighbours car, her other brother, who was four at the time, remembers that car registration number to this day, over fifty years later. Decades later, Helen went on to found the Children’s Grief Centre in Limerick, supporting children who are grieving. In this conversation, Hele...

At just 23 years of age, Australian Palliative care doctor Merran Cooper became a widow when Mark, her childhood sweetheart and husband, died of leukaemia. Forced to move out of her home while still shell-shocked at her husband’s death, it would be three more decades until Merran followed her heart and studied medicine, becoming a palliative doctor to help change the broken system on how we approa...

It was wonderful to speak to Roy Remer, Executive Director of the Zen Caregiving Project (formerly Zen Hospice Project), talk about what brought him to be drawn to work with people at the end of their life and what he has learnt from accompanying hundreds of people through the dying process. Roy shares some great wisdom with Liz about how we might approach accompanying our dying loved ones and wha...

I was delighted to be joined by Dr. Kathryn Mannix for another episode of Shapes Of Grief. In this episode, we discuss the #ihfforum 2019 'Dying is Everybody's Business', at which Kathryn was keynote speaker. We take a look at what it takes to be an effective caring professional, how to avoid burnout and, when someone is dying, how do we know when "enough is enough".  People who care for othe...

When Ger was 9 years old, he found his father dead at home. Unable to process his grief, it would be shut inside for many years until Ger found his way, as a young adult, into a caring profession and gradually began to address his own inner landscape and wounding. His early experience of his father's sudden death and unexpressed grief caught up with him eventually and he developed stomach issues w...

Eight years ago, Gretta Manners had a full time career in teaching and was a busy (and exhausted) mother of three young children; Hazel, 4, Maria, 2 and Tadhg, 6 months. She began to feel unwell and eventually went to the Emergency Dept. of her local hospital to find out what was wrong with her. It would be almost a year before Gretta got home again. What followed was months in hospital due to a r...

Thirteen years ago, Declan Hammond received a phonecall that is every parent's worst nightmare; his son had been involved in a mining accident abroad and was killed instantly.  Declan was spiralled into what felt like an alternative reality, his life would never be the same again. In this brutally honest account of his grief, Declan describes how, for a number of years, he felt mad with grief...

For many of us, we take it for granted that our text will read something like “a beautiful baby girl was born at 5.55am, 8.2lbs, mother and baby doing great”, but for Annemarie McCarthy and her husband, the reality was far from this. The 20 week scan showed anomalies that would render the rest of Annemarie’s pregnancy a constant source of stress and worry. When baby Ruth took her first breaths alo...

Aisling Fitzgibbon and her mother Martha were inseparable. As well as mother and daughter, they were best friends and soul mates. Following a few years of depression in her early twenties, Aisling went on a journey of finding meaning and purpose in her life, accompanied every step of the way by her beloved mother Martha. When Martha suddenly became critically ill, all of Aisling's spiritual learni...

When Siobhan was two years old, both her parents, her older brother who was seven and her aunt all died in a drowning tragedy on Carlingford Lough. Siobhan, her  eleven month-old brother Terry and a nine-year-old sister Orla, were separated from each other and taken in by two sets of grandparents and were raised in a society that didn’t condone mourning or talk of grief.  Siobhan tells u...

In 2000, a bus carrying 7 young tourists in Bolivia crashed into a ravine killing all of the 9 passengers on board; the driver had fallen asleep. Among them were two young Irish sisters. In this episode, Musician and Poet Siobhan Daffy, talks about the sudden death of her best friend, the importance of getting the girls home to Ireland and how community and poetry supported her in coming to terms...

Author of "Love's last gift" Bebhinn Ramsey recounts the sudden death of her husband Alistair while on holidays in San Francisco, leaving her widowed at 31 with a baby and a toddler. At the age of thirty-one Bébhinn had lost her soulmate, the father of her two young sons, but also her faith in life. Bebhinn tells of how the weight of her grief made her feel like a 'cornered rat' and how she went o...

Helen Lamb, owner and founder of the Dublin Wellness Centre, takes us on an intimate journey through her experience of grief following the death of her beloved husband when their baby boy was just months old. Listeners who have accompanied loved ones through cancer will resonate deeply with some of the experiences that Helen shares. She talks about the acute loneliness of grief and the importance...

Catherine Monaghan talks to Liz about life after the sudden death of her brother, what the grief of losing a sibling was like for her and how Tony’s death affected every part of her life. To read Cath’s article in the Irish Times, click here https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/my-brothers-were-inseparable-until-one-died-1.3878482%3fmode=amp About Shapes of G...

For those of you who listened to last week's episode with Justin Caffrey, this is your opportunity to now listen to Beatrice Caffrey's perspective on the life and death of their beloved baby son Joshua. Having endured three miscarriages, Beatrice and Justin were delighted that this pregnancy was going well. When Beatrice was 25 weeks pregnant, they took a much-needed holiday to the south of Spain,...

From high-flying banker to kangaroo parenting, Justin Caffrey takes us through a searingly honest account of his experience when his second son Joshua was born fifteen weeks early and life as they knew it stopped for the rest of the family. Forced to live in the south of Spain near the NICU unit where their son battled for survival, their son’s ongoing dance between life and death would change Jus...

From twenty years in general practice to a full-blown transition to journalist and broadcaster, Dr. Ciara Kelly takes us through her experience of grief following the very sudden death of her father several years ago and then the more recent and prolonged death of her mother just under two years ago. Ciara speaks candidly with Liz about the different experiences, what surprised her about their dea...

More like a conversation between friends, Liz and Interfaith minister Treacy O’Connor talk about a variety of topics related to loss, personal growth, separation, as well as the dance between spirituality and the corporate world. Treacy discusses how her relationship with her father became deeper through the continuous bonds she forged with him after his death. She takes us through her personal jo...

Kevin Toolis is a BAFTA winning film maker and writer of the acclaimed death guide My Father’s Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love and Die.  Toolis has reported on famines, wars and plagues all over the world for The New York Times and The Guardian. As a documentary maker he has filmed in the middle east and directed the Emmy-nominated Cult of the Suicide Bomber television history seri...

Donna tells us about the work of the Dougy centre in Portland Oregon and gives us some insight into what support children may need to help them through times of grief. The Dougy centre have some really useful resources for supporting grieving children and adolescents, which can be found here  https://www.dougy.org . We also mention the Irish Childhood Bereavement Network who are a great resou...

Psychotherapist and author Edy Nathan joins me on Shapes Of Grief this week to talk about the grief she endured through sexual abuse and bullying at a young age, which lead to the debilitating condition of agoraphobia. Edy’s experience would later shape her career choice, leading her to study the creative arts therapies, sex therapy and grief support. In this conversation, Edy takes us through her...