Everyone who knew my grandfather Dan always said how alike we looked. I was in my first year in college when he died suddenly in April 2008. He had been admitted to the Blackrock Clinic for a routine surgical procedure from which he never awoke. I missed him. I still miss him. Born to a farming family in Co. Leitrim, he was a mostly self-educated man who taught himself all the skills he needed to become a Garda. He met my grandmother Eilish while he was stationed in Killarney. She was working as a nurse, a job she was forced by the state to leave when they married, and which she would later return to following Ireland’s admittance to the EU and the repeal of the law barring women from working in the public sector.

In the summer of 2010 I stayed with my grandmother while my family was on holiday in America. During that time I photographed the house and the garden, looking to catch little glimpses of my grandfather’s presence that could still be seen there. The wheelbarrow he used in the garden. The flowers he planted and adored. The seat he sat in – “Granddad’s chair” – which in the years since has become “Nana’s chair”.

I had an infatuation with Polaroid at the time – with the format and its peculiarities; its honesty and immutability; its permanence and fragility. Granddad was one of a kind, in so many ways. As was Nana, who was a strong and caring woman beyond measure. She passed away in January 2016. I never showed her these photos. I never showed anyone until now. I wasn’t ready. For years they were too painful to even look at.

I initially wanted to call this series of images “Granddad’s Garden”. However after my grandmother died I realised that only tells half the story. They were the perfect couple, they lived for each other and had a deep love I’ve rarely seen in anyone else. Nana never fully moved on from my grandfather’s death. When he came up in conversation (which was often) she would smile, and she would cry. I might not believe in an afterlife, but they did.

If there is anything beyond this fragile earth I know that they are together there now.

And they are happy.