Gareth O'Callaghan: The depression express and the small Irish habit of laughing through pain

A train journey, a funeral, and a shared conversation reveal Ireland’s complicated relationship with depression and silence

'Today the plains are flooded, the fields are lakes, the sky is grey, and a clouded mist sticks to you like depression.' Picture: Andy Gibson

“When will it ever stop raining?” the woman sitting opposite me asked. It wasn’t so much a question as an aphorism, one of those remarks Irish people come out with so naturally. Her name was Teresa. She was just back from Tenerife, where her sister lives. Denis, sitting next to her, was returning from a funeral in Thurles.

I’m on the train back home, hurtling downhill through the green fields of North Cork, through the townland of Ráth Luirc, curling around the town of Charleville and on towards Mallow; except there’s not much greenery to see. Today the plains are flooded, the fields are lakes, the sky is grey, and a clouded mist sticks to you like depression.