Owenie Callaghan hitched, and sometimes even walked, according to family lore, from his home city of Belfast for dances in Lurgan when still a teenager in the late 1950s.
His family speculates Owenie took to the road as he believed Lurgan was “more exotic, maybe less dangerous”. It turned out to be life-changing.
He would soon be travelling down and up many times after meeting local girl Patricia McCullough at one town hall dance.
But the frequent trips during what was then a long distance courtship ended with marriage in 1962. For 62 years after they were inseparable and they remained so, even in death.
Last weekend, within 24 hours, Owenie and Patricia died. It was “simply mind-boggling” to lose two parents in such a short time, mourners heard at the double service last Wednesday at St Peter’s Church in Lurgan. But that is only the tip of the tale.
For their passing together, while leaving the sprawling but tight-knit Callaghan family “heartbroken”, was “bitter sweet”, says only daughter Margaret.
“They always joked about going together,” adds youngest son Jackson.
Both Owenie, 83 when he died, and 81-year-old Patricia were quiet people and strong, their family say.
Owenie worked various jobs, as a haulage driver, welder and scaffolder before later as a taxi driver, including in Belfast.
Patricia was an expert stitcher, a knitter. She was still able to crochet right up until near the end, even as she lived for maybe a decade with “slow decline” dementia.
The couple moved in to their Tarry Drive home in the late 60s. In the same house, in adjoining rooms, they died, first Owenie on a Saturday morning, then Patricia.
They brought up their five boys and one girl through the thick of the Troubles, where Patricia “showed her mettle” through some very tough times, says Jackson.
“Mum was great, strong, strong all through the Troubles,” Jackson says. “They never lost any one of us to the Troubles. They kept us on the straight and narrow.”
All the boys, along with Jackson, Martin, Owen, Manuel and Michael, were self employed in various trades. The 19 grandchildren that followed mostly went to university. The family then welcomed a further six great-children.
He, Margaret and brother Michael laugh as they insist their parents would often bicker and fight, but the rule was never to go to bed in a bad mood with each other.
It was March 2020 and the start of the Covid pandemic. The elderly couple, like so many others, were largely confined to the home.
Owenie, already the primary carer for a wife with dementia, “nursed her by himself”, says Jackson. Family members, again like so many others, could only stand outside the home on visits.
In the two weeks before that weekend, it was Patricia who became extremely ill with fears growing she had only a short time. Two granddaughters flew in from New Zealand and Australia and became her main carers.
They sat in the room every day, along with Margaret, Jackson explains.
Owenie was “sharp as a pin” mentally but had physical problems. The family knew he was not going to last long but were thinking months.
“He came in every night to Mum to say prayers and sing her a song, ‘How much is that doggy in the window’,” Jackson says. It was an ode to their shared love of the dogs.
On the Friday evening, Owenie appeared relaxed when he went to bed. He did not appear even as Patricia made noises in the next room, usually a signal for him to rise.
“As the morning went on, we were thinking he’s away,” says Margaret. They went into the room and realised he had passed. Their father had “ploughed the field”, done his job, and was ready to leave, Jackson adds.
The family believes Patricia knew something was happening with people running up and down the stairs and the crying. She died at 6am on the Sunday.
The couple passed close to dawn and in their sleep, something they prayed for.
Ahead of the funeral and burial last Wednesday, there was craic and music and remembering “a fun, good life, a great upbringing, a lot of joy,” Jackson says.
For more than six decades, Patricia and Owenie were side by side in life, they were side by side in death and now lie side by side in St Colman’s Cemetery in Lurgan.
“They would not have wanted it in any other way, but we are still broken hearted at the end,” Jackson says. “Bitter sweet,” adds Margaret.
