We were in the graveyard at home in Ballaghaderreen last month when my sister Sinead said: "I know more people here now than I do in the town," writes Patsy McGarry.
She lives there. Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon is typical of many small rural Irish towns in that it has seen massive change over a short time.
The population is about 1,500. Whereas in the past it was homogeneously Irish, today it comprises an estimated 14 nationalities. Most of the newcomers are Eastern European, well-liked and hard-working. There are some asylum-seekers, mainly Nigerian, and quite a large Pakistani population. Indeed one in six pupils at the local primary school, where Sinead is principal, is Muslim.
By all accounts, not least hers, they are great kids, highly motivated and anxious to be part of everything - even the annual Nativity play! Their fathers work locally in a halal meat factory.
The Celtic Tiger has brought other changes. Parking in the town is now such a problem that a new car-park is being built near the town square. Such a change from when we were kids. We used to play football on that square, unhindered by traffic until, usually, we were run off by local gardaí. Not alone did I know everyone in the town then, but I knew every dog (and its temperament) as well. Our own dog would spend her summer days sleeping in the middle of the street and any car that passed had to go around her.
When I was at school there we had hardly heard of Muslims and had never seen a black person in the flesh. I sat beside the only Protestant boy in the town. He was the Church of Ireland son of our local doctor and the envy of us all because he was excused for prayers and catechism classes.
It can be disconcerting on visits home now to realise how few people I now know. And more and more of my visits are for the funerals of old friends and neighbours.
Last month I attended the funeral of a great family friend and neighbour, the like of whom I know I will never see again. Johnny Gallagher (77) represented so much of what was good about old Ballaghaderreen - or Ballagh, as we call it. In making that and the following observations, I harbour no nostalgia for the so-called good old days. For the "good old days" were hard old days for too many at home and one of the reasons why immigrants there have settled in so smoothly is, I believe, because there are very few people in the town who do not understand the hardship and loneliness of being an emigrant in a foreign country.
As recently as 20 years ago our small town was being bled of its young people through emigration. So you will not find much nostalgia in Ballaghaderreen. That does not mean there was no good in our past. There was lots. There was Johnny Gallagher.
Hillary Clinton is fond of quoting an old African proverb that "it takes a village to rear a child". Well, you could say, Johnny Gallagher (called "Johnny", or "Gal") reared most of the kids on our street, with some assistance from our parents. He was very much of that time when living was a communal effort, though independence and privacy were also respected. So Johnny's children (four) would come on holidays to our house (two doors away) and vice versa. Whenever anyone in our house was in trouble at home it was to Johnny we'd run for consolation and help. As when my youngest brother got a gash on his head after a stone fell on him in a gang war or, later, when another brother had a crash out the road and, rather than terrify my mother with his lip hanging off, he went to Johnny who took charge. He was also our local one-man UN contingent when it came to marital rows on the street.
It was he who brought me on my first visit to Dublin in 1967 (to see Meath play Mayo in the All-Ireland semi-final) and it was he who brought me on my first trip to "the Reek" (Croagh Patrick), then climbed at night.
He helped my brother Sean become All-Ireland light-welterweight boxing champion in 1974 and accompanied him to Moscow and Germany when he fought for Ireland. He helped another local man, Terry Casey, become an All-Ireland boxing champion too. For Johnny was by far the most successful boxing coach/manager we ever had in Ballaghaderreen.
He was also a talented painter and guitar-player and did a roaring business in his butcher's shop, which was a non-stop comedy show where he entertained the town.
But his sense of humour was probably best exemplified for me in a Vincent de Paul concert we staged during the early 1980s, the highlight of which was a pretty alternative/subversive Ms Ballaghaderreen beauty contest with "the lads" dressed up to represent the different town streets.
Johnny was seated on a throne at the back of the stage as "Dame Nanette de Valois". His job was to ensure the lads came up to scratch, so to speak.
He dragged a few contestants off stage as they were being interviewed to "clarify" matters, during which clarification process certain female undergarments were thrown from the wings onto the stage "in the best possible taste".
It brought the house down.
He was a great friend to many, a great neighbour, a great boxing manager. He represented so much of what was good about old Ballagh.
He died on March 25th, feast of the Annunciation - a day of good news for Christians, but not for anyone this year in Ballaghaderreen.