A frail, sick, elderly woman lay on her bed. Deep lines of pain and sorrow were etched across her thin face. Her dark wavy hair glistened in the evening sunlight highlighting the odd strands of grey weaved through her tangled and tossed strands. She moaned in pain, and spoke in hushed tones, barely able to…
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by Patricia Keane Ben and his wife Brianna sat silently in court holding hands waiting for the judge to sentence his older brother Drew. Ben knew that on this occasion it wasn’t going to be a light sentence. It was Drew’s twenty-third conviction, and all eyes were on the Judge except Bens. He was looking…
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by Patricia Keane It was Saturday 26th May 2018, and the Pro-Life advocates around Ireland were reeling from shock as the results from the 8th Amendment Referendum were being delivered blow-by-blow, county-by-county. By 10 pm Irish time on polling day, the results from the Exit Polls had reached the Western Shores of America and as…
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by Patricia Keane Eight-year-old Elena had just witnessed her parents have a loud and aggressive argument. Her parents had tried to shield their children from their warring words, but they weren’t always successful. “Even though I was only eight I always knew when a storm was brewing. My father liked to gamble, and throughout the…
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by Patricia Keane “He belonged completely to God, and even in the darkness, he shined. Sin never divided his heart; such was his fidelity to the sacraments, Holy Mass and the Rosary”, I explained to the Fr PJ Summers the priest who would attend to our uncle’s funeral. Our uncle Peter, who was affectionally known…
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Recently I met up with a journalist named Gloria who writes for a religious magazine. Within moments of chatting it was obvious that Gloria had read my book, Journey Of Ten Thousand Smiles. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you don’t stammer anymore.” In chapter two of the book, I write about…
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In her book Journey Of Ten Thousand Smiles, there was one story that Patricia Keane wanted to include, but the storyline didn’t fit the content. Patricia shared the story with Bernie O’Hara, producer of the Medjugorje Journal, at the recent Medjugorje Retreat in Knock, and Bernie asked her to forward it for inclusion in the…
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The Summerhouse © Patricia Keane 2017 Janja 1993 It’s a bitter December morning in 2007. The Bora, North Wind is blowing the litter on the streets of Mostar out of the city. A plastic bag gets caught in the wiper of my hired Volkswagen Golf. I get out of the car to release it,…
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[caption id="attachment_560" align="alignright" width="419"] Forced Displacement from Vukovar[/caption] Lydia was visiting her mother in the house that the Irish charity Rebuild for Bosnia built for the family after they were ethnically cleansed from a town called Kakanj about an hour north of the capital city of Sarajevo. It once had a Catholic population of 11,000…
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