This week’s edition of Grief Encounters tackles its most universally relatable topic so far - Cancer.

Paul Harrington’s music has been a part of Irish cultural life since winning The Eurovision Song Contest with Charlie McGettigan for their song Rock & Roll Kids in 1994. Hailing from a large family of eight, Paul’s first encounter with grief came on St Stephen’s Day 1999 when his father passed away, naturally at the age of 81. Although terribly sad, he felt a level of acceptance at the passing, because of its nature and his father's age.

Having survived a bout of breast cancer many years previously, Paul’s mother would go on be stricken with bowel cancer and ultimately pass away at the from the disease in 2002 at the age of 80. This devastating blow for the family, was the first of many encounters over a difficult 16 year period for him, where Ireland's biggest killer would plague the Harrington’s with illness and loss.

In this episode, Paul speaks to Sasha & Venetia with complete sincerity and honesty about how difficult cancer can be, for anyone that it brushes. In a particularly poignant moment, Paul describes his lack of self care (over eating, over drinking, smoking etc) as a form of self-harm, in the depths of his grief.

This begins an incredibly interesting conversation around the damaging nature of the word “positivity”, when speaking about death, illness or grief. Sometimes it is difficult or near-impossible to stay positive at the situations life throws at you, and that is okay.

Cancer Stats for Ireland:

1 in 4 deaths in Ireland is caused by cancer.

• Cancer is the biggest killer in Ireland
• It accounts for approximately 30% of deaths every year.
• One person dies from cancer every hour in Ireland.
• Over 9,000 deaths every year are from cancer.

Data sourced from the National Cancer Registry of Ireland (NCRI)

Every 3 minutes in Ireland someone gets a cancer diagnosis. Every hour someone dies from cancer. Incidence of cancer is growing and by 2020, 1 in 2 of us will get a cancer diagnosis in our lifetime.*

• By 2020, 1 in 2 people in Ireland will develop cancer during their lifetime.*
• In Ireland more 40,000 new cases of cancer or related tumours are diagnosed each year.

Data sourced from the Central Statistics Office

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