The Irish star, who has featured in films including The Banshees of Inisherin and In Bruges, is asking the public to support a nationwide fundraising campaign for hospices. The Oscar-nominated actor, who has fronted several campaigns championing hospices, said Irish people are generally good at confronting death. “If you don’t take on board how final death is, you don’t really get a proper perspective on how delicious life can be,” he told the PA news agency in Bewley’s Cafe in Dublin city.
“The hospice movement generally has been a kind of a little bit of a beacon, in the sense that it’s given a degree of positivity to the way life is framed, which I find really refreshing.” Both of Gleeson’s parents, Pat and Francis, spent their final days in St Francis Hospice in Dublin. “The hospice found a way for me to be able to say goodbye to my parents in a way that seemed actually beautiful,” he said.
“I found that a remarkable triumph over circumstance, and it gave me kind of a faith in the humanity it takes to make that happen, because it doesn’t happen by mistake.” He added: “At the moment, I can have a chat at any point with the memory of when my folks were well and not fighting the last throes of life – when they were in their fullness. So, I can have the conversation with those entities and so I feel they’re never really gone.
“With the hospice, you feel this is something that’s perpetuating a feeling that goodness is paramount within this.