Des banks on healing power of meditation

Back when he was a 14-year-old school boy at ‘the Bish’ Des McGuire recalls jumping at the chance of taking a meditation course.

Unusually for a Catholic school, a Buddhist monk visited the boys and offered them the chance to study Transcendental Meditation in a house in the Riverside area of the City.

It was 1968 and just a handful of the students put their names forward. Most had never heard of the practice.

Des asked his mother for the £3 fee which covered the one-on-one training. His mother asked him if it was a religion. When he assured her it had nothing to do with religion and that it might help with his studies, she agreed.

It was three days that would change his life forever. With a photograph of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the wall, Des was taught how to use a mantra, or chanting, to get to a place of stillness.

“I learned how to get my mind in the gap, the place between your thoughts, from where everything comes. I’ve been practising for 45 years, every day since,” he explains. Even back when he was 14 years old, he would rise early and spent a half an hour meditating before school. “I was a nervous boy because I wouldn’t have been as fast a runner.

Des was fifth in a family of seven raised by Edward and Ethel McGuire, who ran the bar and shop of the same name in Ravens Terrace. The family lived above the pub, which has since closed, while the shop continues in what has become a very busy part of the City.

After school he eventually joined the staff of the Bank of Ireland where he was in charge of all the bank buildings along the western seaboard, from Donegal as far as Limerick.

His job was to manage renovations, install security systems and oversee any building restorations.

Des has given talks on meditation to staff around the country. During his working life, he had continued his training, attending workshops and retreats in Dublin, Dundalk and in the School of Practical Philosophy in Galway, where he is now a tutor.

With his retirement day approaching, last year he decided to take the leap and train as a teacher, achieving a diploma from the British School of Meditation in Cheltenham.

While there are up to a dozen different styles of meditation, he practises and teaches mantra-based meditation. It may sound beyond the reach of most of us, but meditation is a very simple practice to adopt, insists Des. The key is to do it every day, for as little as half an hour.

The benefits are immense, enthuses Des, and well worth the small effort.

“It reduces stress and anxiety and depression and fatigue which are the products of the mind. It lowers blood pressure because the breathing slows down the whole metabolism as you go from 18 breaths per minute to one or two. You’re fully relaxed yet fully alert to your surroundings,” he explains.

“People who learn it can see the benefits almost immediately. You regain control of decision-making, you have greater concentration, you improve your mental ability for work or studies. If you do 20 minutes, it’s akin to a two-hour deep sleep. You begin to look at things differently.”

Des married Helen from Boston after a chance meeting in Salthill while she was on holidays. In their Grattan Road home they have raised three children, Nicola, a well-known wedding singer, Owen, an engineer and Aidan, a student.

While two of his children have taken to the practice of meditation, Helen is not into it. “She’s very calm and gentle anyway,” he says. The prospect of embarking on a new career at this stage of his life is “exciting”, he enthuses. Des plans to set up in centres around town, including Health and Herbs on the Sea Road and Triskel in Salthill.

For a longer version of this City Lives interview see this week’s Galway City Tribune