Café space provides different way to deal with grief

Johanne Webb sadly knows more about loss than most. Her mother died when she was aged just ten, she lost a close friend before she turned 20 and her grandparents have all passed away.

She lost that sense of security in her health after she discovered she had the Brca gene, meaning she is at a much higher risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer.

During the pandemic she lost all her work as a performer in theatre, struggling to provide for herself and her teenage son. To top off her misfortune, she and her boy were diagnosed with Covid in September, and she is still struggling to recoup her health after battling very debilitating symptoms.

“So loss is something very close to my mind and heart. It’s something I’ve very familiar and comfortable with,” she says.

“During the lockdown I got to really know my neighbours in Rockfield Park in Rahoon. We met every day to sing and dance and chat. It kept me going to know I had my community around me.

“Yet so many people don’t have anyone to chat to and share their feelings in the depth of these changes and difficulties over the last year and a half. It got me thinking about the real need for a space that people could be safe in to express or feel their grief and loss.”

Responding to a call from the Irish Hospice Foundation to the artistic community for creative explorations of loss, she decided to set up what she calls the Grief Café over the next three months at Éan, a new bakery, café and wine bar on Druid Lane from the people behind the Michelin-star restaurant Loam.

Read the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie