The Heart of the Mater
In 2008 I contracted a virus which infected my heart. Were it not for the fact that I lived very close to the Mater Hospital in Dublin, a national specialist hospital for cardiac care and infectious diseases and for the incredible people who work there I wouldn’t be alive today.
I spent many weeks in a coma and I was not expected to survive. But I did survive and I went on to rekindle my passion for wildlife photography.
Since the start of the first lockdown in March 2020 I have been documenting the Kingfishers on my local river, the Dodder in Dublin. I have donated a selection of these images to the Mater to be displayed in the wards where I fought my own battle with the fervent wish that they might boost the spirits of staff, patients and family members alike in the dark times.
The people behind the story
“It struck me one day why I love kingfishers so much. They are mesmerising, they are fearless and so resilient. How else could they defy gravity to explode vertically out of dark water back to the light time and time again?
This selection of my favourite kingfisher images tells the story of my illness better than words ever could - from the dark dramatic early days thence back to the light.
I dedicate these pictures to the incredible staff who saved my life, to the patients currently under their care and to the families pacing the corridors waiting for updates, praying for miracles.
Sometimes they happen - I am proof.”
— Tara Keane (the patient)
“It’s hard to understand how quickly a medical emergency changes lives, when a diagnosis puts someone you love at death’s door. It’s a dark, terrifying time, when an abnormal situation, unlike anything you have ever faced before consumes your life, becomes your new normal.
If you’re here, reading this, you know what I’m talking about. I left my job, my four-year-old son and my life in another city to be here, with my little sister, whose heart was breaking, whose life was on the line, who was kept alive by machines and by the skill and dedication of the incredible coronary care team.
What else would you do?”
— Fiona Keane (sister of Tara)
“quote pending...”