Football unites grieving fathers

The tragedy of losing a child is a profound and transformative experience for parents, with fathers frequently shouldering the weight of their grief in solitude.

Chris O’Mahony, a sports writer and volunteer with Cork City FC match programme City Edition, is a member of the Féileacáin Fathers group, and their common bond is that they are fathers who have experienced the loss of a child.

Ahead of a recent Cork City game that the group attended together, Chris penned a poignant piece in the match programme about the role of football in bringing grieving dads together, which received a huge response both after the match and online.

Chris found his way to the Féileacáin Fathers group following the stillbirth of his son, Tomás, on March 10, 2020. “The day before his due date, my wife Collette felt there was something wrong. She went to the hospital and when I got there I knew there was tension in the room and the doctor told us that she couldn’t find a heartbeat,” he explained.

A more extensive scan confirmed the couple’s worst fears – Tomás hadn't made it. He had an umbilical cord hematoma which hadn’t been picked up from earlier scans. Chris says that the emotional toll was overwhelming, especially for Collette, who had to endure the heartbreak of delivering a baby she knew hadn’t survived.

At this point, Féileacáin, which is part of the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Association of Ireland, provided support to Chris and Collette and assisted with the grieving process. However, it wasn’t until this year that he joined Féileacáin Fathers.

Chris says that becoming a member helped him realise that there are other men facing similar challenges. “Dads don’t always talk and they are told to look after everyone,” he told the Cork Independent.

Féileacáin Fathers gives fathers the opportunity to connect, says Chris. “There’a a saying: ‘How do you get men to talk? Give them a football,’ and there’s truth to that. If you get lads together playing sport, they are going to talk afterwards. Sports naturally gets people communicating, and that’s how conversations start,” he said.

Mark Millard, is the coordinator of Féileacáin Fathers. “We started the Cork Féileacáin Fathers soccer in March this year. I knew it had had a positive effect on the dads from Dublin and the surrounding areas.

“We had to get dads talking, we had to get dads that were struggling out of the house and doing something, so they could be around other fathers who know exactly what they are going through and how they are feeling,” he said.

Mark secured a venue for the group at District in Silversprings earlier this year. Once the venue was confirmed, he took steps to publicise it and gauge interest.

“The numbers started small and there’s a whatsapp group going with about 22 or 23 of us. We meet once a month at the moment, if we can get consistently good numbers we will look at going every fortnight,” says Chris.

“Some guys want to talk about their children, others might mention them a little bit and others are there for a chat.

“It’s open to anyone who is a bereaved parent, whether that’s miscarriage, stillbirth, the death of a child. If you want to talk you can, if you don’t want to talk you don’t need to,” he says.

“One of the guys, Sean, started bringing a fold out table and a flask of tea so we might hang around afterwards and have a cup of tea and a chat.

“It encourages people to engage more, you’re there and you’re chatting. It’s doesn’t change what happened but it helps in some ways as well,” he added.

Mark says the response to Feileacain Fathers has been very positive and he hopes to build on that positivity going forward. “We share things, both fun and sad, but that’s a safe space and we all get that.

“I have often said, “we are members of a club that we don’t want to be part of, and we would like to close our membership”. This unfortunately is not the reality, and we will expand over time, not only in the numbers of fathers that join us monthly for our kick about, but in other ways too,” he added.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month and the observance of Global Wave of Light on October 15th.