03 April 2018

Easter hope is renewed
in a walk on the beach in
Laytown and Bettystown

Walking on the beach in Bettystown this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Dublin today for a biopsy procedure at Saint Vincent’s University Hospital. It was a quick and almost-painless experience, but I have to return in a few weeks after I receive the full results.

It was an early start to the day, and I have another early start tomorrow morning.

But late this afternoon, two of us decided to head north and go for a late lunch in Relish, overlooking the long sandy beach at Bettystown, Co Meath.

We first stopped at Laytown, but the full tide was in, and instead of walking along the strand as we had hoped, we had to walk along the footpath from Laytown to Bettystown.

Relish was busy for a late afternoon, despite the fact that the Easter holiday weekend is over.

Walking on the beach in Laytown this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on image for full-screen view)

By the time we had finished lunch, the tide was going out, and a vast expanse of beach opening up before us, with a vista that stretched from Mountains of Mourne to the north to Lambay island to the south.

Although the late winter sometimes makes it feel these days that spring has yet to arrive, there were beautiful blues in the skies, the sea, and in the ripples on the sand left by the receding tide.

I imagine the growth on the side of my nose is just another symptom of my sarcoidosis. But I wait for the results with hope rather than trepidation. And walks on a beach, like this afternoon’s walk, are good for my lungs and the symptoms of sarcoidosis, and also good for my heart and my soul.

I may have sarcoidosis, but sarcoidosis does not have me.

The Cross outside the East Window of the parish church in Laytown had been broken for some time. But it has been repaired recently, and it now proclaims a wonderful Easter message on the sandbanks looking out to the Irish Sea.

Christ is Risen!

He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

The Cross outside the parish church overlooking the beach in Laytown (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

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