'Every Picture Tells a Story' exhibition shares snapshots of family and caring

As an exhibition launches at IMMA to celebrate the dedication and sacrifice of Ireland’s carers, Helen O’Callaghan talks to two carers – one in his 60s, the other a schoolgirl – who give everyday without counting the cost.

Every Picture Tells A Story - Hailey and Amanda Golden

Jeremiah O’Donovan’s wondering how it’ll all work out. His 86-year-old mother, Lucy – legally blind and with glaucoma – has an appointment in CUH eye clinic on Monday. And she has a podiatry appointment at 2pm the same day in another part of Cork City.

Hopefully, Lucy, who has diabetes and who hasn’t been to the eye clinic since before the first lockdown, will get through her first appointment in time for the next. 

This kind of concern is par for the course for Jeremiah, in his 60s and one of 355,000 family carers in Ireland. He also cares for his younger brother, James, who has diabetes too, as well as mental health difficulties.

It’s 10am on a Wednesday when Jeremiah and I speak, and he has been up since 6.30am. So far, he has got his mother up, brought her in her wheelchair to the toilet, checked her bloods – which he does four times a day as she’s insulin-dependent – and given her the appropriate amount of insulin. 

He has prepared breakfast for Lucy, lit the fire in the front room (poor mobility means she can’t manage stairs), set out her clothes and toiletries for when the home help comes to help her wash, and put on a stew for dinner.

Every Picture Tells A Story Jeremiah O’Donovan and his 86-year-old mother, Lucy O'Donovan– legally blind and with glaucoma

“Thank God I’m able to do it. You get on with things,” says Jeremiah, a retired truck driver who took early retirement shortly before his dad died in 2017 – “Dad was outstanding in how he minded my mother and brother”. He feels “blessed” to have a great family – his sisters, Ellen and Elizabeth, and his brother, Reynolds, “help out massively”.

The pandemic has narrowed the supports available to the family. “I’d usually have my aunt over to see Mum on a Monday and we have great neighbours who’d call to see her, as well as cousins. With Covid I had to stop all that. In the first lockdown I had to stop the home help. I said ‘Tanya, when this is all over you can come back’ – she’s back now. Everyone was so frightened at the start of Covid.” 

Lucy, a very sociable woman, can’t go to her beloved Active Retirement meetings in Turner’s Cross Day Centre, where she used to spend five hours a day. But she loves the phone, Jeremiah says. “Every single night, she phones all her neighbours and her cousins. We say ‘the telephonist’s on the phone’.” Jeremiah, who loves to get out for walks, has diabetes too. 

He had a stent fitted last year after a heart attack. But what brightens his day is “seeing my mother looking well and just making her happy and content”.

At the other end of the country in Co Mayo, Hailey Golden’s the only one of four siblings not to have special needs. The family home wouldn’t be half the happy house it is but for Hailey, says her mum, Amanda, whose sons, Conor, 10, Jack, 7, and Max, 3, all have autism. Jack’s high-functioning but struggles socially and behaviourally – he really struggles with anxiety. Each boy also has sensory-processing disorder. Conor’s completely non-verbal.

“When Conor was first diagnosed, he had some of the most severe challenges they’d ever seen in a child. We wouldn’t have got through without Hailey. She has always been our little ray of hope, so bright, bubbly and positive,” says Amanda.

Hailey teaches Max to communicate using PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System). “He’s so small, it’s hard for him to learn,” explains 12-year-old Hailey. “I also help Jack learn to talk – sometimes his words come out a bit jumbled.” And whenever her mum’s working with one of her brothers in a specially-converted therapy room, she looks after the other two.

“She does everything for Conor when I’m not available – helps him change his clothes or get to the toilet,” says Amanda. 

“She uses Lámh signs if he’s upset. She’s a great singer and she sings to him. It has a very calming effect on him. He loves ‘You Raise Me Up’ and ‘True Colours’. She’ll say ‘come on Conor, we’ll go have a rest’ and he’ll lie beside her on the couch and rest his head on her shoulder. He has no friends and she says ‘you’ll always be my best friend’. It’d break your heart sometimes.” 

All the boys suffer from insomnia and if Amanda’s tending to one and her husband, Michael, to another, Hailey settles Conor – crucial, says Amanda because Conor wouldn’t have the sense to stay in bed. “I know he’s awake when he makes soft sounds at night, so I go in and sing to him and give him a hug,” says Hailey.

Amanda often wishes “there was another me”, a third adult, so she and Michael could offer their only daughter a better life. “Who wants to think their 12-year-old is up in the night?” She’s glad Hailey gets to spend weeks at a time during school holidays, as well as bank holidays, at her grandparents’ house (pre-lockdown).

“It’s a chance for her to just be a child. Granddad brings her for pizza and Granny bakes with her. She watches movies with them. Her granddad’s in a country and western band and she sings with him. They listen to Midwest Radio late into the evening.” 

Photos of Jeremiah and Hailey form part of exhibition, ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’, at Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).

Every picture tells a story

Family Carers Ireland has launched photo exhibition ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’ at IMMA.

Featuring photographs of 10 family carers with the people they care for/family members, the striking imagery captures moments of tenderness between family carers and their loved-ones – and each has their own powerful story to tell.

For more info, head to Family Carers Ireland website.