April 30, 2024
Photos by Emily Dorio
Dear Bitter Southerners,
Home is complicated.
Just last week I said slán go fóill to the small cottage in rural Galway that has been our family home in Ireland for the last 24 years. John and I shared a love for the quiet camaraderie of life in that small village. He was anonymous and yet known to every person in the community! The impromptu pub sessions at Green’s are now something of legend.
At home now in Nashville, I am thinking of the summers John and I spent in Ireland with the boys, and then later, when just the two of us made time to fly over and wrap ourselves in the comfort of a modern but very simple 150-year-old home. On the brighter dry days, we would pack a picnic to go driving through the winding, seemingly endless roads of The Burren. John would pull the car over and we’d unpack lunch. Leaning on the vehicle, side by side, looking out on a breathtaking vista, that tea and those ham sandwiches never tasted so good. We were good. Sometimes we didn’t say many words; we were home together on the side of the road.
I cannot think of home, a home for me, without remembering the ongoing indignity and hopelessness thrust upon too many men, women, and children. This is a world where the sanctuary of secure housing has become an elusive human right for millions. Children, our most precious gift, are vulnerable to the very worst this world has conjured up. It is this kind of injustice that gets me out of bed on the best and worst of mornings.
I was fortunate to grow up in a small, tight-knit community in Ireland where home was practically every house in the village. But like most small Irish towns in the 1960s, it was dominated by Church and Fear of God. The most fearful things that happened in Ireland then were the secrets held in the vice grip of perpetrators and individuals who were protected by that Fear of God. Still, I marvel at the monumental changes in Ireland. By the late 1990s, Ireland was a not-perfect but progressive country where transparency flourished as the power of the Catholic Church waned.
As the eldest of six girls, it was sometimes difficult to find quiet, alone time. Some of my best memories of those years are walking up through the long meadow behind our house. Lying on my back, at home among the daisies, dandelions and buttercups, looking up at the big fluffy blue sky, lost in my wonderings.
Were there other 10-year-old girls gazing at that same sky? What might be possible for me in the future? Where would I go? France? Spain? What would I do? Maybe be an actress like Elizabeth Taylor in “National Velvet”? Maybe I would go to America? Little did I know. …
We lost our daddy to a car accident when I was 13, and I lost my sense of security for the first time. Home was not home without him. Within a few short years, I’d left to forge a life for myself, to maybe make some of those wild dreams come true. Inside I was wrecked: by the grief of losing my father and, with that loss, the recognition of my burgeoning imagination, creativity, and intelligence. I turned inward to find home.
I was now my own responsibility. I had to again find in my heart, in my imagination, that same soft, safe landing place I’d found as a 10-year-old. I knew that it was vital for my survival then, and to this day I go back there time and again.
As a teenager and a young woman, I moved through the world with a protective layer of glamour and aloofness. I felt unseen and unheard. I hid the shame of my aloneness and grief and looked for home in all the wrong places.
I had my oldest son at age 20, and with him was born the idea of creating a home for him, and for myself. There were good times, hard times, lean times, and times I am less than proud of as a mother and a woman. Survival was everything, and I worked hard at making it all look good. I did have success in my early career in the music business, as manager of prominent recording studios in Dublin. I bought a house there, but my search for home was not over.
I met John in 1988 at a party after an event at Dublin’s newest and biggest venue. There was an immediate recognition for both of us of a familiarity that we might have met before, but hadn’t. We connected immediately, and within days we were in love with each other, and with the possibility that our lives and our imaginations could somehow blend. We wanted to be together, but we both had lives strongly anchored in place with responsibilities, and we both had trust issues. Big love is scary because it can be swiped out from under your feet in a second. We both knew that in our bones.
We felt safe together. We shared so much in common – losing our fathers too soon, rural roots that run deep and defy easy explanation, a neediness and a fierce independence, family, and country music, all the music. He thought I was the bee’s knees. I knew he was one of a kind.
In those days, John traveled more than 200 days a year. Home was Nashville – and he loved his house – but so too were the countless hotel rooms where he unpacked several large suitcases to re-create home every night. For several years we agreed that 12 weeks apart would be the longest, and we spent God knows how many hours on the phone in between. I moved to Nashville with my son in 1993 to be with John. We married and grew a family with love and loyalty as the driving forces. Over the years we lived in three beautiful homes. I uncovered my love for buildings, houses with archways, old doors, long tables, tile, textiles, and lighting. I took a lot of pride in the homes we created together. We always counted our blessings and never forgot how we got there. We shared what we had with family and friends and gave back significantly to our community; some gifts were public, but most were private.
Our last home together was large and beautiful. John called it his Graceland. I thought it was a mathematical error, because we had decided it was time to downsize. It was 2018, the boys were grown, and it was back to just us – me and John – at home. We renovated, upgraded inside and out. It was magic to come off the road and slowly drive down the long paved driveway where low lights all over the house shone their Welcome Home.
And then, grandchildren! This would be the home where they played, and swam, and watched big-screen TVs and ate Grandpa’s famous pancakes.
All the big love, with its ups and downs and roundabouts, had brought us Home. We were together 24/7. We really didn’t need much more.
In early 2020, as the world reeled at the news of an emerging pandemic, we lost John to Covid-19. I lost the love of my life and the truest home I’d ever known. The boys and the “littles” lost a beloved dad and grandpa. All of us – our family, extended family, chosen family, our friends, and fans all over the world – lost a man who had, through his music, offered refuge, empathy, and compassion to all who knew him and his songs.
In the days, weeks, and months after John died, that big empty home was the tenderest and safest place in the world. I had space to grieve, to rail against the virus that had taken him from me. I felt his quiet, comforting presence – like he was in the next room watching a game show.
Time continues its quiet, relentless onward motion. For the most part, these last almost four years have been a time of swirling winds that sometimes bring hope and joy, and can often take me to my knees.
I sold that beautiful house last year – too big, and too many A/C units. As I write this, in my very small rental house in Nashville, I’m torn between two homes: Ireland, where my mother and sisters are, and our quiet cottage in the country; and Nashville, where my family lives and works and thrives.
I will find a place here soon. I will fill it with all the beautiful things that John and I accumulated over the decades. I’ll cook some favorites for my expanding family and we’ll all sit at the long table together. When I am with my sons, our sons, time slows a little, truly, and I feel I am home. And in the distance, I can still see that large green meadow where just about anything is possible.
Fiona Whelan Prine
Fiona Whelan Prine is managing partner of Oh Boy Records, the second-oldest independent record label still in operation. She is also founder and president of the Hello in There Foundation, an organization that honors John Prine’s memory and continues the love, kindness, and generosity her late husband shared with the world.
Emily Dorio is a photographer based in the Southeast whose work and campaigns have been used globally. Dorio's work focuses on storytelling — eliciting emotions and highlighting the beauty and authenticity of her subjects from portraits to still lifes.