A pilgrim’s lonely journey on the camino

ON the pilgrim path about 20km east of Santiago de Compostela in the north of Spain, there is a simple memorial to a 52-year-old Irishwoman who died in her sleep having just walked some 800km.
Myra Brennan (nee Holland) of Kilkenny and Sligo had actually just completed her second successive camino, which meant walking all the way from the village of St Jean Pied de Port on the French side of the Pyrenees to the cathedral city of Santiago in Galicia where legend has it the remains of St James the Apostle lie.
According to the memorial, Myra died peacefully in her sleep on June 24, 2003.  The memorial was erected on the fifth anniversary of her death, in June 2008, by someone describing themselves as “Bridget F”.
I had not heard of Myra Brennan before I came across her memorial last month as I approached the town of Santiago while completing my own camino. I know nothing about her apart from what is on the memorial.
For all I know, she may have done the pilgrimage on horseback or on a bicycle.  But I am presuming she walked because that is how most people do the camino. 
I also presume she had walked from St Jean Pied de Port because that it the most popular route to take for people from this side of the world.
But she must have been a brave and determined woman. To do it once would have taken a fair amount of willpower. But to complete it two years in succession must have taken an extraordinary woman.
I am sure she died happy in the knowledge of her achievement. But she was too young when she died. She would be 60 if she were alive today and capable of completing many more caminos. I looked her up in Google but could find out nothing about her apart from what is on her memorial. I don’t know if her husband is still alive or if she had any children. I am sure her family missed her when she died. But they must be proud of her. As befitting a person with Sligo connections, there are the famous lines from WB Yeats on her memorial:
“And I shall have some peace there for peace comes dropping slow.”
I decided to do my own camino when my older brother Tomás died peacefully in his sleep last June. I was driving up through Spain when I got the terrible news. I decided more or less then and there that I would at least attempt to walk some of the camino as a tribute to my brother.
He was my hero, his death was totally unexpected and I could quite easily drift into a state of depression on hearing of his death. He and I often talked about life and death. We told each other that we did not feel our ages, that our parents, our grandparents and many of our uncles and aunts lived to ripe old ages and that we also should at least live into our 90s.
But his sudden death at the comparatively young age of 76 blew that theory into smithereens. I now felt vulnerable and thought, like my brother, I too could go at any time. 
While I was waiting in the North of Spain to go on the camino, I got news from home that my nephew and godson, John McCormack of Limerick and London, had died. I decided to dedicate my pilgrimage to him also.
I decided that to walk the whole 800km was a bit too much to expect from a 74-year-old like myself who had never taken too much care of himself. So I settled on 112km over a four-day period from the town of Sarria.  You need to walk a minimum of 100km to be officially recognised as a proper pilgrim.
After my brother’s funeral and throughout the summer, I read as much as I could about El Camino de Santiago,  including the excellent Buen Camino by Peter Murtagh of The Irish Times. This pilgrimage to Santiago cathedral dates back more than a 1,000 years.
Apparently in medaevial times, Irish pilgrims left from St James’ Gate in Dublin. I didn’t do that but did the next best thing, I had a few pints of Guinness at the Corner Stone bar in Lahinch the night before setting out.
Also during the summer, I practised walking but never more than two hours a day. On the camino, I would be walking around six hours a day, much of it over mountains and hills.
I took the ferry from Rosslare to Cherbourg in the North of France and drove from there to Bilbao in the North of Spain. I undertook a 10-hour train journey from there to Sarria, where I spent the night before setting out on the long walk.
I had looked up the weather forecast and was confident there would be no rain so I didn’t bother bringing any rain gear.
Like a lot of people of my age, I can have problems with my back, so I had to keep to a minimum the amount of stuff I would take with me.  Apart from the clothes I was wearing – shorts, underpants, tee shirt, baseball cap, boots and socks, I was advised to carry as little as possible in my rucksack:  Change of socks, shirt and underwear, pyjamas (which I found not to be essential), long pants in case the evenings were cold (they were not, so the long pants remained in the rucksack), a towel, elastoplast (for blisters), a needle (to burst blisters), mobile phone and charger, money (of course), credit card, notebook, ear plugs (in case of sharing room with snorers), a torch, a bottle of water, and a banana.
I also brought a light jumper tied around my waist and which I wore only in the early mornings. I should say that apart from having a bad back, I also have a dodgy right knee for which I carried an elastic support and would strap around my knee when it gave me trouble after about 15km each day.
I had two walking sticks with me, on the advice of my doctor Michael Kelliher in Lahinch. He told me the sticks would take the pressure off my legs. I said I would look like a fool carrying two sticks.  Wouldn’t one do? He replied that one was half as good as two. I certainly believe I would not have been able to do the walk without the two sticks. Before he got up on his hind legs, didn’t man walk on all fours like a horse?  So my two sticks served as my forelegs.
I walked an average of 28km each day over the four days and rested up for about 20 minutes after walking about 8km, which meant taking a rest about three or four times a day before finishing.
The walk was no major deal and was not as painful as I thought it might be. It was over some of the most beautiful countryside in Spain.
However, it was a delight to reach my destination each evening. Taking off my boots and socks and then having a shower was like heaven itself. Second heaven was having two cold beers after changing into my flip flops and putting on a clean shirt. Third heaven was having my one full meal each day, around 8pm, before retiring to bed.
But the greatest pleasure of all was reaching the Cathedral of St James in Santiago on the final day of my camino.  However, I had to find the place where I would receive a certificate proving I had walked over 100km. The cathedral was thronged with tourists from all over the world, most of whom seemed to have just alighted from buses parked around the corner. 
I was so proud of myself, a 74-year-old with a bit of a beer belly and an obvious pilgrim with my sticks, my rucksack and the dust of the road, among all these clean people. But I might as well be one of the beggars outside the front door for all they cared about me. Anyway, I eventually got my certificate, which will probably spend the rest of its days at the back of a drawer at home. 
The biggest drawback for me over the four days of the camino was the loneliness. I met nobody of my own age. Most pilgrims seemed to be in their 20s or 30s and were in small groups. They were mostly Spanish, French or Germans. There were some English and possibly some Irish but I didn’t feel like butting in on any of them. So I walked alone, I dined alone and I slept alone. I would have liked to have somebody to talk to as I drank my two beers each evening. But that was not to be.
Next year, I hope to walk over 300km from the French side of the Pyrenees – in company. The year after that, I would like to do like Myra Brennan and countless thousands of others have done over the ages and that is to walk the whole 800km from start to finish. We’ll see.
God rest you Myra Brennan and all those others who have completed the camino over the centuries. God rest you too my brother, Tomás, and my nephew and godson, John.  May your camino be a pleasant one.
Since then, my daughter, Róisín, died at the end of November. I am still grieving for her and next year, with the help of God and St James, I will do the camino again and dedicate it to Róisín.