Niamh Fitzpatrick

Niamh Fitzpatrick brings a psychologist's training and a sister's grief together in Tell Me The Truth About Loss. After her sister, Irish Coast Guard pilot Dara Fitzpatrick, died in a 2017 helicopter crash, Fitzpatrick also faced the end of her marriage and the loss of hoped-for parenthood. The memoir records grief as an uneven physical, emotional, and practical experience rather than a fixed sequence of stages. Gill Life published it in 2020. Fitzpatrick had worked in psychology for decades, including clinical practice and sport performance, yet she writes candidly about discovering how different professional understanding felt from living through cumulative loss. Her chapters make room for anger, disorientation, memory, friendship, therapy, and the gradual return of hope. Fitzpatrick has also served as a psychologist with Irish Olympic teams and worked with performers, athletes, businesses, and private clients. In this book, however, credentials do not insulate the narrator. They give her another vocabulary for examining how people adapt while maintaining an enduring relationship with someone who is gone.