A photo of 85-year-old Dubliner Mary Dent and a Garda who held her hand while walking her back to her house went viral last Sunday, and now the pair have had a heartwarming reunion on Liveline on RTÉ Radio 1.
Mary was attempting to return to her home in Ringsend last Saturday evening when she got swept up the throngs of people attending Robbie Williams' Aviva gig.
Garda Reserve Paul Barnwell was her knight in shining armour, taking her shopping bags and grasping her hand while they navigated the crowds.
Photos of the pair walking together were shared thousands of times online, and even Mary's son, who lives in San Francisco, became aware of the event, ringing his mum on Sunday morning to tell her "your face is all over the papers!"
Dublin native Mary Dent & Garda Reserve Paul Barnwell have just been reunited on air with @talktojoe1850 #liveline 1850 715 815//joe@rte.ie pic.twitter.com/wcuJfdqr6j
— Liveline (@Liveline_RTE) June 22, 2017
Mary described the moment Garda Paul came to her rescue to Liveline host Joe Duffy on Thursday and it elicited a huge reaction from the Robbie Williams gig-goers. "It was uproar!", she said. "He took my bags and held my hand and there was an uproar.
"They were clapping and cheering. I said 'Surely to God they're not clapping at us'. There was hundreds of young people, very nice people, they were lovely."
When the crowd spotted Mary and the Garda walking down the street hand in hand, they parted "like the sea for Moses".
"And they were all taking pictures!" Mary said with a laugh.
The garda, whose name she didn't get at the time, accompanied Mary right to the corner of her street to make sure she got home safely.
@GardaTraffic Garda spotted helping elderly old woman home with her shopping amongst @robbiewilliams crowd on Bath Ave #HoldingHands #SoCute pic.twitter.com/0xD3QPM44C
— Emma Lawlor (@emzylawzy) June 17, 2017
Mary contacted RTÉ One's Liveline to try and track down her mysterious escort to thank him and Garda Reserve Paul came on the line to say he was only delighted to assist Mary.
"I said I'd be your toyboy," he joked, adding that he was "totally taken aback" by the reaction of the crowd.
"I was amazed by it and sure look, it was lovely. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and I was walking with a lovely lady so what more would you want," he said. Garda Paul went on to describe Mary as a "friendly, chatty person."
As well as working as a Garda, Paul is also a full-time farmer, to which Mary interjected "I could have been a farmer's wife!" "You could have been a farmer's wife." Paul joked back.
Paul works one day a week in the Garda Reserve and he said of the job: "I like being out in the streets, I like talking to people and dealing with people."
"That's perfectly true." Mary said.
The area was packed ahead of Robbie Williams over the weekend - fair play to this Garda who helped an older lady make her way through #Gent pic.twitter.com/dnBttJHHic
— Slattery's Pub (@slatterys) June 20, 2017
