A short message on behalf of the club

[Mark]

Dee's untimely death came as a great shock to all of us.

UCD Canoe Club meant an awful lot to Dee, and Dee meant an awful lot to the club. To seperate Dee and what I consider to be the core ethos of the club is impossible. This club is about having fun. It's about having fun through paddling, partying and forging friendships. Dee was an enthusiastic and talented paddler, and a great person to go boating with. She was always up for a night out and never far from the fun. She has left an indellible mark on the club.

Our sympathies are with Dee's Family.

[Mitch]

Only knew Dee for a short while but she was always the life and soul of our days and nights out as far as i could see.
Mitch.

[Pia!]

I dunno what everyone else thinks but i just wanted to write down my favourite memory of Dee and try and get everyone else to do the same in this post. So far only Mitch has written up and this topic will be forgotten if we don't keep writing in it. I'd love to hear of everyone's favourite memory of Deedee and maybe we could put them all together into the Dee Scrapbook!
Anywho, here's mine...

Ok-we were all getting drunk in the NRE bar in Uganda. The music was shite. They'd just been playing the same crap playlist over and over for nearly two weeks. Killian and Dee have been bitching about the music for hours so Dee decides to rip the old iPod out of the speakers and sticks hers in instead. Suddenly "I punch you" (with the fist of my COCK!) starts playing. Everyone jumps up dancing and starts going mental. Dee hops onto the bar and starts breaking it down Laois style as we all order shots of ZAPPA!! Next thing, i look at Dee and she's actually hopped behind the bar-kicked the barmen out and is screaming: "Lads, i'm the bar lady! FUCK OFF!!" Even though there is "technically" a $50 fine for going behind the bar, the barmen were so shocked by this sudden turn of events that they just sit back and let her do all the work. Immediately she whips out a shit load of shot glasses and starts handing me free zappas (dancing all the while and singing "I PUNCH YOU WITH THE FIST OFF MY COCK!) and screaming at complete randomers- "What do you want!? I'm the bar lady!!!THis continued until the barmen realised that Dee was not a very good bar lady and they were losing lots of money. From that point on "I Punch You" became our Uganda theme tune-all thanx to Dee and her loutish behaviour!!

(if anyone who was there that night remembers something else feel free to put it in-it's a pretty hazy memory due to all the Zappas!)

[Canuala]

wooooh ooop pia!
shes right u know, i read that post and laughed and cried....i think its easy to get bogged down in the loss of dee, and forget the reason why we're all so sad; cause our deedee isnt around anymore. deedee shouldn't be defined by her death.

so a memory of dee....
        i met dee properly last year at kerry, i had crased her private house that night, hearing thats where the craic was at, and joined a game of slaps with kylie, lisa, sean, davy, keith, perhaps eoin powell, jen bell, pia and kill...there may have been others, but the memories are hazy, im sure ul forgive me. Anyway, dee, i had been told was sleeping, reenergising for the drinking that was to come, and the slaps had disbanded, as everyone had become too drunkenly distracted by things like eggs and collanders. Killian put on dee's laptop, and my next memory is dancing on the sofa beside someone with crazy curly hair, then being chucked into the back of ciaran's car with said curly haired dancer and screaming/singing (you decide) the whole way to the ross inn.
the next morning i discovered that this amazing talented dancer/singer (whos skill is perhaps equalled only by my own) was deirdre conroy. we were sitting in the kitchen trying to discover where the disco lights had come from in the living room the night before:
dee: you know i was convinved that there were flashing lights and other thingys here last night
me: yeah i know, i mean i thought there was strobe lighting or something....
enter killian : girls that was me flicking the overhead light on and off...
dee and nuala: ohhh...

to my deedee...may she disco dance for ever

[kmck]

When you gave dee a compliment you got that smile. Always brightened my day.

In her first year I lived across from dee in Roebuck castle and every so often you get a call looking for a hoover. First time it happened, she arrives at the door and I give her a hoover, mop and bucket and some cleaning supplies. She looks and says I only need a hoover and I say have you checked everywhere yet the canoe club was in your house. The answer was no. Five hours later dee arrives back at the door, thanks me for the hoover and the rest as she had to do alot of mopping and cleaning.

Some pms from dee, this one was after myself and kylie turned up last summer before uganda at about 3 in the morning

you cooking chinese for my radiographers and providing tortillas to feed my munchies!oh and you and kylie made bets about me but i wont mention that!no harm done!

 Learning nothing from first year

the house smells like beer!
i think i made a few tactical mistakes....firstly i let allio into the house with a bottle of vodka nd 20 cans of cider, also my level 3 was d next day nd i didnt want a repeat of last week so i went to bed bout three leaving asho in charge......im lucky the house is still standing!

Passing her level 3

passed,wooo!

There are things I will never forget, though I have tried... the bristol scale.

[Lucy]

I dunno bout everyone else but when I try to think of a memory involving Deedee (of which I know I have many) it gets harder to grasp a hold of one cause I panic about forgetting them. So, marvellous plan Pia.

One memory that I've managed to grasp at this moment in time was when we were attempting to kidnap Dee for spring break. She had been hosting some form of radiography party type thing and had apparently once again partied too hardy and pissed off her landlord. Next thing we know Dee comes running out of the house only to dive and roll in behind our parked car screaming "HIDE HIDE!" Whilst giggling histerically.

A simple memory but none the less a treasure to me.

[Sara]

OK this is huge but it's what Im giving to Asho for her memories of Dee Dee scrap book

Girls white water training
It was about a year ago that I was invited to sit in on a ‘girls white water training day being run by Kate Harris and Cat Halpin, two of the big names in irish paddling. Dee was on that trip on the annamoe. She was a gutsy promising young paddler and was chosen for this training trip because the canoe club committee could  see her potential and  desire to improve her paddling. My main Dee memory’ from that day was coming up to a rapid called ‘Guinnisses’ and Dee telling me that she had never made it doen that rapid without swimming out of her kayak. Of course she did swim down that rapid that day but only on her first attempt. Like any determined kayaker she collected her boat and paddles at the bottom went back to the top of the rapid and paddled down it again. This time, she made it to the bottom of the rapid in her kayak with paddles in hand. I was so proud of her.

Only a couple of months ago I mentioned this to her with a smile after she spent about 20minutes guiding freshers down that rapid and helping with the rescue.

Wales
For the Easter weekend of ’07 Dee, Myself, Kathleen and Shiobain all packed into Siobain’s Corsa with tents, paddling gear and boats and headed to the ferry for our big Wales adventure. We were off to the picturesque Twyreen river which is damn controlled and designed and built specifically for kayakers. We managed to blag our way into the camp site, not realising that the welsh also celebrated easter and all camp sites would be booked out, and got in our gear and set off to a local lake to practice our rolling technique before dinner. Dee’s roll wasn’t very strong at thae time but she was determined to practice it and get better (it was in Uganda that she developed an extreamly solid roll). Dee and I made a pact that evening to do 20 roll’s before we left the water.

The next morning it was off to the Twyrenn river. Dee had brough one of the club’s playboats and had a tough time getting down the river. Play boats are much shorter than river running boat and are designed for doing spins and other tricks on standing waves and other river features. All we wanted to do was get down the river in one piece and with smiles on our faces. Poor Dee kept getting capsized and dragged by her boat into any feature on the river.

On the second day of our trip Dee decided to borrow a bigger boat, specifically designed for river running and she paddled happily down the river, not a bother on her. It just went to show that Dee was a very good paddler and that day it was just unsuitable gear that had let her down. Her skills shon through in the end and we had a really fantastic weekend in wales. One we will never forget.

Sluice
It was in October or November of 07 that I randomly met Dee and Sluice, a white water feature for surfing and doing tricks on the Liffey close to Lucan. I arrived and was surprised to see three girls from the canoe club surfing sluice. Not a canoe club boy (for rescue or to impress!) in sight. It was great to see the girls being gutsy enough to keep going into sluice, it’s quite an intimidating place to be. I got in my boat and went over to join them. It was Dee ,Kathleen and Jody, they had been there for hours. Kat and Jody had gotten off for breaks and lunch but not Dee Dee. She was on the water all day, pushing herself all day not giving up. It was so impressive to see the girl who had a shakey roll last April going into sluice, surfing and when sge capsized rolling up, not a bother and getting right back in there. Her paddling improved immensely in Uganda.


Gutsy, brave, stunningly-beautiful, caring, fun-loving, adventurous Dee Dee, you have inspired me to paddle hard and focus on improving as fast as you did. Im going to try to live life to the full like you did although how you combined partying and paddling with equal vigour I don’t think ill ever know. You were the ultimate girl-boater, you had it all. I’ll think of you every time I snap on my spray-deck, every time I get nervous about a rapid or a play hole and everytime I go for a roll.

Love You
Miss You
Sara

[Diarmaid]

I think most of you know this one but it's still one of my favourites:

This was I think the Saturday night in Easky '06. It was about 4 or 5 in the morning and we were back from the pub. The van with the sound system had set up and people were milling about.

I was out of booze.

So I says to Allio, I says: Allio, got any booze? And he says there's a bottle of vodka and a can of red bull in the boot of my car.

Yoink.

Mix.

Woohoo.

Wandering around the campsite pouring this into people and telling them (in a thick Jakov Smirnoff accent) "In my country, zey call zis ze Wodski Bull". Some people drink, some don't, I do, and a good time is had by all.

Then I wander up to Dee with the bottle of Wodski Bull and before I can even get within 5 yards of her she screams (in her usual hysterical, indignant - loud - scream):

"GET AWAY FROM ME DIARMAID, YOU REPULSE ME!!!! I'LL NEVER SCORE YOU!!!! GO INVADE POLAND!!!!!!"

[mmmmm]

Playing drinking Game of Life (our common favourite board game incorporating an alcoholic twist!) for hours on Spring Break 06 in Dee's mobile home.

Or being woken up at 9 o'clock in the morning last June Easkey to an ash covered Dee and Claire singing the wonderfully catchy Roy Orbison classic "I drank all night"

Noone can party like DeeDee, what a legend.

[roz]

I´ve got a few, but a non drink related one was the morning after the ball last year when I drove my Simon, Dee Killian and my friend Nicki from Lynams up to the getin of the upper liffey. The weather was bucketing it down and the waterfall on the way... the really big one (Glenmacnass? but I don´t think so, help me out) was honking. We pull over to have a look and Kill and Simon tell Dee that the get out of the upper liffey is in an eddy just above the waterfall (which it´s not). God bless her, she still wanted to do it although you could see she was terrified. When we told her we were messing, she almost seems disappointed.

[allio]

the simple things.

dee could never operate the stereo in my car. she used to mash the front of the stereo with the palm of her hand repeatedly until the front popped off so she could get at the cd player to change my deep and meaningful deep slacker jazz into some of that shite she called music....

the double dee seal of approval.

and many other very fond memories....

thinking of you everyday deedee
xxx
allio

[Kat]

Visiting Raisa in Finland.   Back in the Sauna to thaw out the eyelashes from iceskating, getting a little warm.   So we decide to go out into the back garden to cool off, only the door is frozen shut.    Only option apparently is the front door, following a loudly screaming bikinied Dee out into the snow, snowball fight in the street in front of raisa's house, the poor neighbours.

[Diarmaid]

haha that was a street? the photos made it look like the middle of nowhere! brilliant! hahaha....

[jesus_jones]

Myself and Allio had taken over the DJing duties in The Ross Inn in Kerry and I was spinning the wheeles of steel like there was no manana. Dee was staying in the house beside me and I kinda knew her and thought she was a bit mental cause she had those massive wandering eyes.
Anywho she wanders up to me and the music is blaring and she signals that she wants me to come closer, so I thought she has a request, probably something awful that she wants me to play. As I lean in to her she screams "Mental high five" and headbutts me nearly knocking me out and as I'm there reeling from it she gives me a hug and wanders off..
How could anyone not be friends with that.

[raisa]

I really have to go with Kat this one!! Dee was screaming (you guys know how that sounds like) every time she went out of sauna so she kind of woke up my neighbours and I had to go apologize next morning and explain something about foreign people.. But next day we did the same thing anyway. And even she hadn't skiing that much, she was brilliant!!

I also remember Easkey 06. Me, Dee and some third girl dancing middle of the road, near the pub. Every time a car (locals) was passing us we were shaking out asses or boobs. Totally Dee's idea  I wasn't really able to even dance that day because my ankle was hurt a night before. But somehow Dee got me dancing on the road shaking my ass to every car that passed by.

Miss you loads Dee