Michael Harding: The motorbike had been a gift for his son’s 18th birthday. But he had lost his son to suicide

I went for a morning walk across a beach in Donegal during the warm weather. The tide was out, and the sea was so far away that I couldn’t hear the waves, just an ocean hum lulling the gulls that pottered around on the dunes or idled their time on rocks and watched me with an indifferent eye.

There were jellyfish scattered across the sand, and I wondered if they were dead or just sleeping. But there were no surfboards, towels, umbrellas or other signs of human life, only that strange distant hum of the sea to companion me like the presence of a Being beneath the surface of everything.

And then the phone in my pocket rang.

“Your insurance was up last month,” the woman said. “We wrote to you a few weeks ago to check if you wanted us to renew it.”

“I am on holidays,” I said, “and it slipped my mind.”

She said, “There’s no bother: you can pay now if you like. Do you have your credit card?”

I did. And there on the Zen beach I uttered numbers into her ear as she sat far away in her office and typed on her keyboard. I could imagine the money draining out of my account into the ether and then materialising on her screen moments later. We both agreed that modern technology was a wonder; it can even allow the most clinical of exchanges to become intimate. I would have talked more to her if there was time, but she was busy. So I finished my walk with my trousers rolled up to the knees and my bare feet splashing in the little waves.

His name was Bunny O’Riordan, and he was cycling all around Ireland during August to raise money for the Midleton Hub, a safe place for people with mental-health issues, especially people dealing with suicide, to connect, gather and comfort each other

Later that day I was in Dungloe, looking for the post office, when I noticed a cluster of people with guitars singing outside the Bridge Inn. The centre of attention was a man with a trim grey beard and sunglasses. He was straddling a motorcycle and accepting the adulation of the crowd. I couldn’t resist approaching him.

His name was Bunny O’Riordan, and he was cycling all around Ireland during August to raise money for the Midleton Hub.

“What’s the Middleton Hub?” I wondered.

“Google it,” he said jokingly. “The website is online.”

And then in a quiet voice he explained that the motorbike had been a gift for his son’s 18th birthday but, tragically, he had lost his son to suicide. And afterwards a few of his friends and some people in Midleton got together and created the Midleton Hub, a safe place for people with mental-health issues, especially people dealing with suicide, to connect, gather and comfort each other.

The crowd were having great fun singing ballads and drinking beer in the afternoon sunshine, and I wished I could join them, but I had commitments elsewhere.

The wounded world never goes away, and the ocean did not let me off the hook as lightly as my chattering friends at the dinner table. So I took out my phone and googled. The Midleton Hub. And I pressed the button. Donate

I was heading for a barbecue that evening with a family from Dublin and some Americans who were on holiday. So the prospect of more white wine in the open air, and more pasta beneath a cloud of Donegal midges, lay ahead of me. And I didn’t entirely relish it, as it’s a well-known fact that the most fearsome midges on earth abide in Donegal and have a fondness for the blood of Cavan men.

We sat around, chewing steaks and clinking glasses and watching ice cream melt and moralising about American politics and the war in Ukraine. The midges let everyone off the hook except me. I scratched my ankles so furiously that the others pitied me, and not even the chilled wine, which usually reminds me of that long-ago Packie Bonner summer, could compensate for the agony.

Eventually, the company agreed to retire indoors. But I said I was anxious to get back to the beach. The ocean is at its most serene when the sun dips like a lantern beyond the silver horizon, and it wasn’t far away.

Once again the tide was low as I arrived at the sand dunes. No midges could survive the wind. The light was slanting on the beautifully empty strand. My shadow stretched beside me, and I felt a kind of gladness to be there as the tide came in.

But the wounded world never goes away either. And the ocean did not let me off the hook as lightly as my chattering friends at the dinner table. I suppose beauty creates its own moral imperatives. So I took out my phone and googled. The Midleton Hub. And I pressed the button. Donate.