This Is Patrick

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I was born in Helsinki, Finland, I grew up for most of my life in Germany, which accounts for my funny accent. Coming from Finland there are many choices and interests, either you’re into sailing, ice hockey, cross-country skiing, extreme sauna-ing, diving into ice lakes, wife-carrying, heavy metal, lumbering, or racing cars on the remote gravel roads. Amongst other interests and hobbies I’ve always been a petrolhead so you can imagine where my main interest would have been.

Even though I chose a rather boring professional background in business administration, I always liked any combustion engine and tinkering with tools. My first motorbike was a 50cc moped which I raced up and down the hills and through fields on my grandparents estate at the tender age of 11 and I’ve been infatuated with motorbikes ever since.

When my father passed away in 1998, we decided as a family to not to part with the Irish Castle and I gradually took over responsibility. In July 2004 I moved over permanently to Ireland from Germany and took over the family business full time. After having adapted the Castle for hospitality we opened the gates to the public in July 2005.

When I moved to Ireland I also came here after having left a not so successful marriage behind, so I wasn’t in a rush getting involved with the ladies any time soon. But then, in September 2005 I met this woman from a different planet as it seemed, with her sparkly mind, charisma, her wit, her infectious smile, she had me under her spell within seconds. I was in love, and unexpectedly to my great luck and joy, she was too.

Up to this point my life hadn’t suggested that love at first sight would even be something real. As it soon enough turned out, Sheila was my (better) half, my best friend, my soul mate. We shared a great common ground, but at the fringes we would be total polar opposites – and in that way we completed each other perfectly. Between the two of us, it seemed, we would master any challenge. In 2007 I proposed to her, we got married in September 2008 and early 2009 our daughter was born. Life couldn’t have been happier. Until lightning struck in September of 2009: Sheila has cancer!

The way we operated the castle allowed us to focus on Sheila’s health as a priority and so her challenge became the center point of our reality. But thanks to Sheila’s unbreakable will, excellent consultants and modern medicine, we actually managed to live a reasonably good, and most of the times, a happy life – especially when Sheila was in remission – 3 times in those 13 years! And it could have continued forever more, but around September 2021 Sheila developed a persistent cough and negative covid tests proved that it was the cancer in her lungs growing again. Changes in her treatment brought no improvement and in September of 2022 the consultant declared that there was nothing more he could do.

On the 23rd of December I drove with Sheila to the Milford Hospice in Limerick and on the 6th of February, one day before her 50th birthday, Sheila drew her last breath.

You, reading this, might correctly remark that even though this page should be about me, I rather talk about Sheila. And it is true – ever since I fell for her, Sheila was my other, and better half. And I’d rather talk about that half.