The Ray D’Arcy Show: Meath’s Street’s Noel’s Deli, RTÉ Radio 1
In harsh times, when most of the news is never good, Tara O’Kelly’s story offered a beacon of hope. It’s a testament to heartfelt goodness.
She is from the Liberties – tough, inner city Dublin – and has worked at Noel’s Deli from the age of 14.
Her life story went viral on the Humans of Dublin social media and was picked up by Ray D’Arcy, who interviewed her and her boss Noel Fleming at the shop – a kind of community hub.
Tara had a difficult start in life – both her parents suffered from addiction problems and died when she was very young.
Noel stepped in to point out that he remembers her mother, Deirdre, and how she cared for her four children. They visited his shop on their way to school and she had them “scrubbed like new pins”.
“Deirdre was a very good mother,” he said.
But she died when Tara was just six years old.
She remembers being told that her mummy was very ill. “Why don’t they get the Calpol out of the fridge,” she thought.
But it is to her aunt Ado that Tara O’Kelly is forever grateful.
She took the children in and raised them alongside her own two. She raised six children in total “with no help of any man”, said Tara.
It is to her Aunt Ado that she will always turn. She kept them all on the right path. She was strong and strict with all of them.
“I wouldn’t be who I am without her,” she said.
Lots of children end up in foster families, but her aunt ensured that didn’t happen.
Ray D’Arcy talked about the addiction cycle – how children can follow in their parents’ foosteps.
But Aunt Ado was having none of it.
“She was so tough on us as kids… I wasn’t allow to go to discos when I was 13.
Tara had a difficult start in life – both her parents suffered from addiction problems and died when she was very young
“As an adult I was so grateful.”
The wider story of the Liberties is of a community that looks out for each other, as both Tara O’Kelly and Noel Fleming stressed.
When times are tough, they pull out all the stops.
Good news is heartening.