Dolores Keane: "This child is going to be born and he is going to live".

Dolores Keane, the renowned traditional singer from Caherlistrane in Galway, was buried today. In 2003, she shared her reaction when a doctor advised her to abort her unborn son. She and her husband John Faulkner had been given a difficult diagnosis for the baby and they went to Canada and England hoping for a different prognosis. 

From the Irish Independent: 

The specialist in Canada, a friend of Dolores' from Cavan, "absolutely" helped by saying, "We won't know what condition the child's kidneys are in, for sure, until the child is born." Whereas the "guy in London" merely deepened her horror to a seemingly unforgivable degree.

"He just looked at me and said, 'I would advise you to abort,'" she says, anger rising in her voice. "So I just kicked the chair back and told him, 'You f**ker! This child is going to be born and he is going to live!' And I stormed out."

Some women, foolishly perhaps, might have paid attention to what that doctor - the so-called "voice of male authority" - had said.

"Not me!" Dolores responds. "I very near hit him. But I didn't. Instead I became totally determined Joseph would be born. But then I had to decide how to tell the family. It was only then I did tell them."

Obviously, Joseph was born. 

"At nine pounds, 10 ounces, " says Keane before adding a layer of lightness to this tale by claiming she "will always remember" her father's response. "He hated hospitals but he came in, walked over, looked at Joseph in the little trolley and said, 'Jaysus Christ! That fella's half reared!'"

Even so, Dolores Keane's heartache was far from over. She was told Joseph would probably die "within 24, then 48, then 72 hours". So what did she do? The first night she "went down and nicked him" out of his incubator and brought him back to her bed.
Don't you just love the spirit of this woman? Maybe that's what Nanci Griffith meant when she called Dolores "the soul" of Ireland - its irrepressible soul.

"I took Joseph into my bed and I said to him, 'If you're going to die, you're going to die with me and I'm going to look after you, not someone down the hall I don't even know!'" she says. "I just kept talking to him. Then they used to come in, when I was asleep, and take him back. But they never said anything. Yet I never felt so lonely in all my life."

Enter Ireland's own archangel Gabriel, in the form of "Uncle Gaybo".

"I'll never forget this either," claims Dolores, suddenly smiling.

"It was Friday night and I was after nickin' Joseph and lying there in bed. And I was supposed to be doing a gig with De Dannan and didn't they come on the Late Late Show. And Gay Byrne said, 'Congratulations to Dolores, she's not with us tonight because she just gave birth to her son, Joseph.' And I said, 'Joseph! Do you hear that? That's you! That's me he's talking about! Gay Byrne mentioned us!' It was great! And I felt great that night for the first time."

As one woman posted today: "I remember reading this bit from an Interview with Dolores Keane in 2003 and thinking 'what a legend'." 

Ar dheis lámh Dé go raibh a hanam álainn. 

Watch her here: what a voice: