Falling in love is easy. Staying in love, through distance, is something else entirely. In the first part of our two-part series, three couples who have been together for decades reflect on the long arc of their relationships:
Maggie and Danny
Maggie Green (45) and Danny McFadden (44) have the kind of love story that takes its time. They met in college in Letterkenny, became close friends, lived in the same house, and stayed in each other’s lives for 25 years. The romance was there early, at least on Danny’s side, but he was careful not to risk the friendship, while Maggie kept missing his cues, despite their unabashedly romantic nature.
There were mountaintop picnics, late-night walks and star-gazing, personalised books for Maggie, even treasure hunts based around her favourite musical. Maggie laughs now: “I didn’t realise that was anything other than friendship… so, yeah, it took me a while!”
They finally got together 13 years ago, after reconnecting as adults with long beach walks and increasingly lingering goodbyes. On New Year’s Eve, Maggie was planning to spend the night alone when Danny texted her “Put the kettle on” and arrived at her door. Their connection was immediate and unshakeable. “We both knew at that stage,” Maggie says. “We had a really strong friendship, so we had a really good foundation and felt really safe. There was no turning back after that.”
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Almost as soon as they began, they were tested by distance. About a year into the relationship, Danny was offered an 18-month contract with the British Antarctic Survey, sending him to the ends of the earth. The separation was daunting, but Maggie’s faith in the relationship was steady. “After 12 years of not getting together, another 18 months wasn’t going to be that tough.”
Antarctica stripped communication back to its bare bones. The internet connection was “point three of a megabyte”, Danny says, with science work taking priority. Calls were rationed. “In the 18 months, I think I probably spoke to Maggie three times,” Danny says. Maggie coped, but she doesn’t romanticise it. “There were moments when you got really, really down – something happened, and you wanted to talk to him or tell him, and you couldn’t.”
So they built connection deliberately. Before he left, Maggie made him “three books with a page for every day”, Danny says, “where she had written me every single day something for me to read when I was in Antarctica”. She also created a USB key of family videos; “Christmas and birthdays and stuff, a message from somebody back at home life.” Those small anchors mattered, especially during the Antarctic winter. “It was very, very, very dark,” Danny recalls. “And it was nice to have those reminders of home.”
Danny tried to send love back across the world too. On Valentine’s Day, he arranged flowers for Maggie, only for the bouquet to fall out of a delivery van in Donegal. A stranger photographed them by the roadside and posted online: “Is this she, Maggie, I think it’s from Danny?” Even from Antarctica, he was still trying to reach her.
When Danny finally came home, Maggie went to Dublin to meet his flight, and surprised herself with nerves. Then she saw him, and all doubt disappeared. “The minute he came through, I think I threw my bag and I just went running.” Danny remembers Maggie running into his arms, “just beautiful, dressed stunningly”, handbag flying. “It was one of those times where you knew other people were watching,” he says, smiling, “but you really don’t care.”
Today, they live in Donegal, married, with Maggie’s two children, dogs, and busy academic lives. They’re not “in each other’s pockets”, but grounded in the friendship that came first. Their advice on long-term love is simple and unsentimental. “It’s not always the big things that mean the most,” Danny says. “It’s just the little things: looking out for each other, noticing when the other person needs an extra hand – or a cup of tea and some peanut M&M’s.”
Danny and Maggie’s love has never been loud, but it has been constant: patient enough to wait, real enough to recognise, and deliberate enough to keep choosing connection, even from the ends of the earth.
Philly and Adam
Philly McMahon (46) and Adam Matthews (39) have the ease of a couple who’ve built a life by choice, not default. They’re coming up on 20 years together this November, living in Stoneybatter, “on the wall of Phoenix Park”, and even while video-chatting from a holiday in Vietnam, they’re finishing each other’s sentences, laughing constantly, and speaking about each other with an unforced, everyday admiration.
They met 20 years ago in a tiny gay wine bar in Dublin, just as both were stepping into the lives they wanted. Philly was leaving bar work to go full-time as a theatre-maker; Adam was finishing college as a musician. “We were both at the very start of something,” Philly says, and that sense of building side by side still anchors them. They don’t talk about “relationship goals” so much as a shared, evolving project. They’re both living their dreams of working in the arts. Philly is the co-founder of THISISPOPBABY, and they often collaborate on productions. “We kind of make it up every year,” Philly says, describing how they plan, pivot and hustle in the arts to keep their lives spacious and adventurous.
Their engagement story is classic them: romantic, chaotic and funny. During Covid, as “the world was falling apart” and other couples were “falling left, right”, Philly felt their relationship growing stronger. Wanting “a marker, a flag in the ground”, he rang Adam’s mother, “the boss of the family”, to ask whether he could propose. The proposal itself took place in Phoenix Park, with Philly’s romantic plans repeatedly derailed by icy rain, a scone break, and Adam’s low blood sugar. Adam kept asking why they were stopping; Philly remembers thinking, mid-cycle with the dog in the basket, “This p***k is not getting engaged.” They still laugh when they pass the bench where it happened.
They’re also shaped by a particular Irish queer timeline: growing up when marriage felt “not available to you”, then living through the public shift of 2015, when same-sex marriage was legalised. Philly recalls being told they were “intrinsically disordered by the church”, and later being able to ring Adam’s mother to ask permission to marry him. “The story is not our story,” he says. “The story is Ireland’s story.”
There’s a depth of character to him that means that there is always discovery
— Philly McMahon
Even so, they’re wary of replicating a straight template. After 20 years, they’re still asking what a wedding that feels like them might be. “Maybe it’s very quiet,” Philly muses, “and then it’s a rave.” As co-founder of THISISPOPBABY, he jokes, “Part of it is that we both work in the arts, so the idea of a wedding just feels like another production.”
[ He says I’m the love of his life and I don’t know how to leave himOpens in new window ]
Their day-to-day happiness is made of small rituals, and a lot of laughter. They’re devoted to their 12-year-old Jack Russell, Henry, and they walk 10km in the Phoenix Park most days, “just chatting”. Their connection isn’t built on identical hobbies, but on shared values: “Friends, showing up for people, living a creative life, creativity over consumption.”
They work together a lot and are honest about the pressure that can bring, especially in arts work, where there’s no 5pm “switch-off”. But their creative passion provides endless energy and inspiration – as well as offering some relationship wisdom. They use the tongue-in-cheek theatre acronym TTFN, or “take the f**king note”, as a reminder to drop the defensiveness and actually hear each other.
When asked what they admire in each other, Philly doesn’t hesitate. Adam’s kindness and talent, yes, but also the ongoing surprise. “There’s a depth of character to him that means that there is always discovery.” Adam’s answer is pure affection: “Philly’s way with words,” his daily humour, and “the way that he is a good human. There is there no limit to his kindness.”
Their advice to other couples is blunt in the best way. Don’t try to reshape your partner: “Try not to change anybody,” Philly says, and if something’s wrong, ask, “What’s my place in it?” Adam’s version is to the point: “Listen. Listen.”
Then Philly returns to the core lesson they’ve lived by: be brave enough to say what you want. “If you can stand in front of someone and say, ‘Here’s what I want, here’s what I need,’ and the other person can say, ‘Here’s what I can give you, and here’s what I can’t,’ then you’re actually in a dialogue about your relationship.”
Long-term love, for them, isn’t a performance. It’s two people making a life that fits, year after year, with honesty, humour, and the willingness to take the f**king note.
Susan and Stephen
Susan Fox (55) and Stephen Grant (57) have the kind of love story that starts quietly and then proves itself, year after year, through shared ambition, hard work and a fierce commitment to building a bigger life together. Now together 38 years, they met on the Bray–Dublin train in the late 1980s, two teenagers commuting into the city and slowly clocking each other over months. Stephen was the quiet, brooding one; Susan stood out with big hair, big earrings, and an unmistakable confidence. “I liked him straight away,” she says. “But I thought, he’s never going to ask me out.”
He eventually did, in the most pre-mobile way possible: tracking down a landline number and ringing to ask her out for her 18th birthday. Stephen borrowed his dad’s car and took her for dinner. Susan still remembers the feeling clearly. “At last,” she says. “I was waiting.”
From the beginning, they recognised something important in each other: shared ambition. Both had grown up watching their parents work relentlessly for limited reward, and both wanted more. Travel. Independence. Security. “We wanted a bigger life than the one we’d seen,” Susan says. Stephen began DJing and moving through the early tech world; Susan trained in beauty therapy and later joined Aer Lingus as cabin crew, where travel became part of her everyday life. Crucially, neither held the other back. “We didn’t clip each other’s wings,” Susan says. “We did our own things and came back richer for it.”
Over time, their careers became intertwined. After Susan was forced to leave Aer Lingus following a serious back injury, she set up her own clinic, Eden Beauty Group, now running in Wicklow for 25 years. Stephen, with his engineering and software background, joined her, and together they built a business combining beauty, technology, training and distribution. It worked because their roles were clear and trust absolute. “The only way it was ever going to work was honesty,” Stephen says. “That was your bit. This was mine.”
Their toughest years came during the financial crash. Susan, ever a fashion lover, had also set up a clothes boutique, but with two small children, a large mortgage, staff to pay and a business suddenly haemorrhaging money, the pressure was immense. “We went from turning over serious money to a massive loss in one year,” Stephen says. “And you’re both living it, all day, every day.” What carried them through was teamwork. “We never checked out,” Susan says simply. “We stayed in it together.”
Parenthood deepened that bond, particularly when their daughter Isabelle was born with Down syndrome. Stephen was told alone and had to break the news to Susan himself. “You learn everything about someone in those moments,” she says. They chose not to be defined by fear but by response. Stephen stepped back from international work so he wouldn’t miss any milestones with Isabelle, and then her brother James, and together they built lives centred on being present parents. “You never get those years back,” Susan says.
I know I am always supported and loved. I also still fancy him
— Susan Fox
Even now, decades in, they protect their relationship deliberately, as their work ethic has maintained itself. Stephen now works for Service Now; Susan still runs Eden and is also the co-founder of the self-care brand, Ealú. But their weekly date nights are “non-negotiable”, anniversaries are marked, and memory-making trips are planned whenever possible. “It doesn’t matter what you do,” Susan says. “It’s making the time.”
Asked what they admire most in each other, Susan doesn’t hesitate. “He’s completely dependable. He’s always there for me and the kids. It’s easy to go to work and run a business when there is zero drama at home, and I know I am always supported and loved. I also still fancy him!” Stephen points to Susan’s determination and clarity. “There’s always a way forward with her,” he says. “She doesn’t give up.”
Their advice to other couples is grounded and unsentimental: communicate honestly, don’t sweat the small stuff, and choose your battles. “Life is compromise,” Susan says. “You can’t control everything, but you can control how you react.” And don’t forget those date nights, says Stephen. “If you don’t deliberately make space for each other, life just takes over.”
Part two of this series will be published online and in print on Saturday, February 14th
