R Duffy

This is the coincidence of a friend: Between April 1985 and 1986, an Irish friend of mine, living in Manchester (had been there for over 10 years) had a year off to work and travel - along with her sister - in Australia. For the first 6 months they worked - in either Sydney or Melbourne - I can check - then for the final 6 months they travelled extensively throughout the continent, hitchhiking mostly, but also taking other means of transport. One Friday afternoon they were dropped off by a lorry driver at some small town in the Outback - in a really out of the way place - near Darwin (but not too near) or maybe Alice Springs. These are 2 hardy women who grew up on a farm in County Sligo. They planned the journey to some extent, in order to keep in touch by letter with their parents ( they were 27 and 25) and so they knew that in 2 week's time they would be picking up a letter at some town along their route. They checked into a small hotel and headed upstairs to wash and change. As they climbed the stairs, my friend said to her sister "That fella at the bar" - she could see an older man sitting having a drink - "he's Irish". She could just tell by some instinct or other and indeed when they came down half an hour later and started up a conversation with the man, her instinct turned out to be true. This bloke was in his late fifties, was from another part of Ireland and had emigrated to Australia nearly forty years earlier. He'd been working in the town - checking a mining situation or some such venture (I was told but it's not relevant to the story) and was leaving the next day. He asked them to join him for dinner. He'd never been back to Ireland since he left as a very young man in the late forties and had lost touch with the place but he was most animated to revive a sense of his homeland due to a very important fact - his youngest son was at that very time cycling round Ireland - furthermore, that very weekend, he was calling on his mother's old friend - someone she'd lost touch with, again forty years ago when she'd also emigrated to Australia. He told them that his wife had rummaged and found an old letter that reminded her of her friend's married name (this of course all happening before the internet came along) and only a couple of days ago the boy had managed to get in touch and arrange a visit - and would be there - time zones being taken into consideration - later that day. He was vague as to the friend's whereabouts - only that it was somewhere in Sligo - what a coincidence! My friend and her sister passed a pleasant evening with the man - even though they were having a great adventure, they were at times homesick and so enjoyed chewing the cud, relating tales of modern Ireland, possibly singing a few songs. The next day he left and then a few days later they moved on. Two week's later, as arranged, the two sisters picked up the letter from home at another town along their route. It was full of a story about an Australian man, cycling round Ireland - the son of a very old friend: "Do you remember", asked their mother in the letter "me telling you how at 17 a friend was recruited through the nuns at the convent to train as a nurse out in Australia?" They vaguely remembered - their mother had many such stories. So the coincidence - to lay it on heavy but it was pretty amazing - was that while the twos sisters were spending the weekend in the outback of Australia with an Irishman who had left his home country years ago, their mother back in Tubbercurry was entertaining the man's son - at the very same time. A complete and total coincidence.