Goodbye Cara

I am sad to hear about the death of Cara Cunningham, a friend from Kilcar, Co. Donegal. He must have been approaching 90 years of age. After Cara moved into a new bungalow a few metres up the lane, he rented out his little thatched cottage, the house he grew up in. I'd sometimes take the cottage for a week to work on my novels. A fair bit of LOST DOGS and DEEP DEEP DOWN was written at the kitchen table, under the small square window.

Photo by Marie Carr in 2011.

The cottage had hardly changed since Cara was a boy. It had a cast-iron range, holy pictures on the wall and only one electric socket in the whole place. He always thatched the roof himself although grant aid was available to help people maintain such traditions. He dismissed the idea of applying for grants as if that would be some kind of affront to his self-reliance. I also suspect that he was not a man for filling out forms.

Cara often wore a big woolly hat, despite having a good head of hair. During my visits I would sometimes drive him to Killybegs, where he went to get it trimmed. His hair was in a 1950s style which actually looked retro-hip. In his youth, Cara was considered one of the most handsome men in Kilcar.

It was best to rent Cara's cottage in the winter. I'd bring my own heaters although Cara would always supply a generous amount of turf as well. You were guaranteed to have the place to yourself in January or February. In summer, someone else might show up and Cara could never turn anyone away. I'd come back and find a couple of German backpackers had moved in for the night. Once, I was sitting outside the front door with just such a backpacker. She lit up a cigarette. Cara had a fear of burning embers from the tip of a cigarette flying up into the thatch and setting it alight. He asked us to go indoors. That was Cara's. A house where you weren't allowed to smoke outside and had to go inside.

In the Irish language, Cara means friend.