Life & Style

'You won't find someone like this on Facebook' - Irishman's heartfelt letter to his best friend of 60 years

With social media playing a growing part in our lives, Irish Post reader Mike O'Hara from Kent says you can't measure friendship by the number of likes you get on Facebook. For the last 60 years he has been best pals with fellow Irishman John Hennessy. Read their heart-warming story below.

EARLIER this year the national newspapers and other media reported that children were addicted to social media and that their happiness was dependent on how many ‘likes’ they get.

Their lives are planned around being befriended by people they have never met.

The word ‘friends’ has been rendered meaningless.

People of my generation who were born in the 1940s and for whom, in terms of age, it has already struck midnight had no such pressures and whilst poor in material terms we knew the reality of friendship.

If a person makes two of three real friends in a lifetime that are indeed lucky.

I do not include family, whose commitment is even deeper.

John and Mike circa 1967

For example, John Hennessy and I will be celebrating 60 years of friendship this year.

Meeting in 1958 when we both started at a Catholic grammar school we were drawn together by similarities in temperament, humour, and both being Irish.

We had many youthful escapades and some hairy scary times.

We quickly learned when to stand our ground and when discretion was the better part of valour.

Later on we were best men at each others wedding to our amazing brides June and Susan.

That we are still married is a testament to the courage and staying power of these lovely ladies. We are godparents to each others children, and we have ‘seen the two days’ – the good and the bad.

Ours are not remarkable lives. Biographers and film producers are not beating a path to our doors.

But our friendship has been a constant thread throughout those lives.

The great paradox of friendship is that it does not need to be proven in any dramatic way.

Hennessy has never rushed into a burning building to pluck me from the flames and I have never dived into a raging sea to save him from a watery grave.

No matter.

Each of us believes that the other would do so if called upon.

For 60 years we have given each other the gift of laughter and in that laughter two old men have become young again.

You cannot get that by pressing ‘like’!