Even by the joy and tear filled standards set by the Dublin Airport legion of welcoming committees in the days running up to Christmases past, Chloe went way overboard.
She sat patiently enough by the sliding doors for 20 minutes or so and was easy to miss.
But then, she saw the sisters she was waiting for, and she went absolutely wild. While the delight and the embraces and the almost silent whimpers coming from her were probably not out of place at a time of heightened emotion, the face licking was, definitely, a little excessive
Chloe is a seven-year-old pug beagle cross – known as a puggle, we are reliably informed – and its owners Ronan and Enda Molumby had taken a chance on bringing her to the airport to meet their daughters Laoise and Nessa who were returning home for Christmas from Princeton and New York respectively.
“We saw there were some people with dogs at the airport on the news last night so we thought we’d take a chance,” Enda said as she waited for her daughters while trying to hide Chloe with her legs. “They’re on the same flight so hopefully we’ll get away with it.”
They did.
Ronan recalled how he met Enda when they both lived in New York in the 1980s and he said he was quite lucky his children had only gone to the US “as so many young people are heading to Australia these days. Now that is far away”.
After the two girls were welcomed by the parents and their dog, they started to breath easy and even the very air that they were breathing made them smile. “It was the first thing we noticed,” said Nessa. “There is such a difference between Irish air and New York air, it slaps you in the face.”
In the hours before dawn on the shortest day of the year, a wave of transatlantic flights swept thousands of bleary-eyed people home for Christmas, with many of those walking through the sliding doors into the arrivals hall greeted by the happiest of tears and the tightest of hugs from family and friends.
Along with the tears there was laughter and shrieks of delight. Much of it was coming from the Skerries girls lined up in one corner of the Terminal 2 concourse as they waited for a buddy flying home after a stint with the Fighting Irish.
The only thing the welcoming committee was missing – apart from a night’s sleep – was an E.
Some of the group of 10 had spent the night making a “welcome home” sign for Lucy Naessens, a student in Notre Dame, with each one of the party given a letter to hold. Others had come straight from night shifts in Dublin pubs.
The person who might otherwise have been holding the E, however, had stayed in bed so rather than greet Lucy with a “welcome hom”, one of the group agreed to pocket her phone and hold two letters spelling ME instead.
Aoife McAfee was designated as the group’s talker to free up the others who had different roles – including making a Love Actually-style TikTok video, obvs.
“Lucy is coming back from Chicago, she left for Notre Dame in August and we all miss her that much. We are going do the 12 pubs on Sunday but after this we will all probably go to bed,” Aoife said.
Lucy was as delighted as she was shocked when she walked into the arrivals hall fresh off the Chicago flight to the wildest of cheers. “If I’d know they were here I would have put on the lashes,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it.”
She wasn’t the only one surprised by the carry on. Her parents Corona and Brendan Naessens thought just the two of them were meeting their daughter. “That is why we are standing in the background,” her father whispered.
“We didn’t know the pals were coming but it is fabulous,” her beaming mother said. “It is great to get her home now, we miss her terribly.”
What will Christmas be like in the Naessen house? Turkey and ham and all the trimmings?
Not a bit of it.
“Well, we are not very traditional,” Corona admitted in a conspiratorial tone. “We had four children close together and we let them decide what to eat so they wouldn’t spend their time fighting over the menu and could enjoy the meal instead. We’re going the Chicken Tikka Masala route.”
Murt Coleman from Mount Merrion was in the arrivals hall to meet his daughter Deirbhle, her husband Peter Newhall and their daughters Saibh (11) and Freya (16).
He was almost as giddy as the teenagers waiting for Lucy and about as happy as Chloe the puggle.
“They are home for 10 days all the way from Chicago,” he said after the first round of hugs had finished. “We see them about once a year [and] this is a serious big deal. There is a group waiting for us in Mount Merrion at the moment so there will be breakfast and a big celebration.”
He didn’t mind one bit being the one sent to do the very early morning pick up. “Saibh and I are going to put up the Christmas tree later. I was told not to put it up until she arrived. It is a little bit late but that is the instruction I got. She said she wanted a big one and her dad Peter is tall so he can put the angel on top. ”
Caroline Behan was welcomed home from Vancouver by her sister Elizabeth, who was laughing and crying as they shared the warmest of embraces.
“It is so fabulous, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without her and we are just so glad to have her home,” Elizabeth said as her sister hugged the rest of the family, including one hero who had come straight from her office party to be in the airport.
While the rest of the party was full of beans, the Christmas Party girl was, shall we say, less full of them and she waved The Irish Times away with a bleary sigh.
“We’d all be in big trouble if we didn’t come to the airport,” Elizabeth explained.
Caroline nodded in a good natured way. “Christmas is all about family and I would be very lonely if I was over in Vancouver. It is rainy there are the moment so not very Christmassy at all.”
Christmas is also about friends and Paul Dowling was met by his two college pals Leslie Alcock and Aoife Ní Ghloinn. After restorative coffee in the airport following the flight from O’Hare they were all planning on heading over to Newgrange for the Solstice.
“There’ll be a lot of druids there,” Aoife said. “The druids and us. We don’t have a ticket for the chamber or any shrouds but we will still go out and have a look.”
From there, Paul said he would be heading home to his family in Gorey. “I work with Irish community services in Chicago,” he said. “We do some immigration work and work to keep the Irish community engaged. We also work with other immigrant communities. It is such an uncertain time and no one really knows what to do. There is a lot of rhetoric and no one knows what he is going to do.”
There is no need to say who the “he” is.
Valerie McGrath was in floods of tears as her daughter Leah arrived in from Canada for the first time since last Christmas.
“I am living there for two years and I have no plans to come home,” Leah said as her mammy starting crying again.
“It is fantastic,” Valerie said. “This is my oldest girl and a year is a long time. We have FaceTime and we talk every day. I probably talk more to her now but this is very special and I get a bit greedy with her time. When she makes plans it doesn’t go down too well”
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