A dear friend texted me just minutes after I heard the news. “Oh, Emer, I’m so sorry about Catherine O’Hara.” She was offering it as a condolence, a recognition that I would be devastated upon learning of the death of this woman who meant so much to me.
Many people of a certain age, myself included, first fell for O’Hara in her role as the feisty, frazzled, warm and beautiful matriarch of the McAllister household in the Home Alone movies. She filled so many iconic parts over the years, notably Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice and her many collaborations with Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy on mockumentaries like A Mighty Wind and Best in Show. Her greatest, most iconic role was of another matriarch, this time the eccentric, spoiled, dramatic and fabulous Moira Rose.
Had I ever met Catherine O’Hara? No. Did she have any idea I existed? Also no. Did I have any personal connection to her whatsoever? That’s a negative. However, I was once lucky enough to be in the same room as her for one single evening. I flew across the Atlantic to be there. That’s how much I loved her, her character, Moira Rose and the TV show Schitt’s Creek.
In late 2019, I was in a compromised place, mentally and physically. I was waiting for news of a bed in a psychiatric hospital. I was on new medication that sent zaps through my brain and leached every last drop of moisture out of my mouth. I was at the tail end of a taxing book promotion period. As one does, I sought comfort during this trying time and found it in spades in the beautiful and hilarious Schitt’s Creek, a comedy about a wealthy family who lose everything and must go and live in a backwater town.
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As anyone in my life will attest to, I need very little encouragement to book an impulsive and expensive trip in pursuit of a niche adventure. So, when a friend and fellow Schitt’s Creek fan spotted a live “evening with” event with the cast of the show taking place in Brooklyn that November, I was comparing flights and lobbing tickets on credit cards like the fate of the earth depended on it. We were off to Schitt’s Creek Live!
We rented a quirky Airbnb in Chelsea with loud wallpaper, eclectic art and an entire burlesque and drag dressingroom. The key had to be collected from a bodega on the corner and we were under strict instructions to tell anyone in the building who asked that we were “George’s cousins”. We practised saying “We’re George’s cousins” to each other and dragged our cases up the stairs. It was a frigidly cold November in New York, but we swiftly realised that our home for the weekend was intent on maintaining a temperature that one would really only expect at the bottom of the ocean, where scalding water erupts from vents in the seabed. It was sweltering and there was no way of turning it off. Obviously, we did what any self-respecting Irish head would do in such a situation. We turned on our heels, sounded the call for Manhattan-based Irish heads, and did the dog on it.
The combination of the infernal heat, the booze and medication side effects meant that the hangover the next day – Schitt’s Creek day – will go down in the history books. We lay on the Airbnb couch in our underwear with all the windows open, the icy breeze barely making a dent in the wall of heat. How on earth were we going to drag our desiccated carcasses all the way to Brooklyn?
By the power of Moira Rose, that’s how. I wasn’t flying thousands of miles and enduring the tropics of the Airbnb bathroom to miss out on seeing my beloved in the flesh. Two subways and some shaky gulps of Gatorade later, we were there just feet away from Catherine O’Hara, her costar Eugene Levy and his real-life son Dan Levy, who created the show, and the rest of the cast.
“I’m so glad we came,” I gasped at my friend, teetering on the edge of delirium and joy, profoundly struck by the surreal surroundings and company.
Upon arriving back in Dublin, I had to go straight from the plane to a book event with a live audience. The medication and the extreme weather conditions in the Airbnb had dehydrated me to such an extent that I was sick for two weeks. The money I spent could certainly have helped me in some small way towards home ownership. But do I regret going? No. Not for a second. I got to see Moira Rose in the flesh. Before it was too late.
