Mary offers a lifeline to marriages in crisis

City Lives –  Bernie Ní Fhlatharta meets Mary Ó hIcí, a counsellor with the Catholic service, ACCORD

Planning a wedding is a major operation for most couples these days but often they forget that a marriage is forever (supposedly) and not just for ‘the big day’.

Couples should be planning for the rest of their lives and not just for that one day, says Mary Ó hIcí, who has been a counsellor with ACCORD (the Catholic Marriage Care Service) since it was set up in Galway 42 years ago.

Mary and her husband Peadar were one of the first married couples trained up to give pre-marriage courses in the Diocese and Mary signed up for more training to become a counsellor for ACCORD when the group started providing marriage counselling.

This was a voluntary commitment Mary has kept up since, even during her years of childrearing.

Through that work she made a new circle of friends, has certainly widened her outlook on life and today is the longest serving counsellor on the ACCORD team.

“None of us knew each other when we started. We were all strangers to one another,” she says.

Mary explains that she didn’t do any other charity works and that her work with ACCORD became her mission. In the early days, as well as the pre-marriage courses, the couples were involved in a lot more educational works, such as being part of school retreats. Years later, the pre-marriage courses were separated from the marriage counselling work so that people either specialised in one aspect or the other.

Mary is a good advert for a long marriage having been married to Peadar since not long after they finished in studying the then UCG, where they met.

Peadar is from Ennistymon in County Clare and Mary is from Castlerea, County Roscommon, and after graduating college, both took up teaching posts. Mary taught in Kildare and Mountbellew but after she got married, she had to give up her career due to the now defunct public service ban on married women working.

The couple settled down to married life and Mary stayed at home for 10 years rearing their children until she returned to part-time teaching in the Grianach House School on the Dublin Road, a private school run by the Seventh Day Adventist, which has since closed.

Peadar went on to become Principal of St Joseph’s College (The Bish), a position from which he has since retired.

After her own retirement from teaching, Mary was able to devote more weekly hours to her counselling work, which now primarily involves with married couples. It’s a lot different from the work she started out with, steering young hopeful couples, excited at the prospect of starting a new life together.

Mary still loves what she does and believes the work done by ACCORD is very worthwhile. She is happy she kept up her voluntary commitment to the organisation.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.