In a new project, photographer Ruth Medjber is asking ordinary people to share their extraordinary tales. This week, she meets Gill Costelloe, who has terminal cancer
Gill Costelloe at her home in South Dublin, photographed by Ruth Medjber for the series, Sin Scéal Eile
It’s a freezing cold January morning when I knock on Gill Costelloe’s door in South Dublin. I can already see flashes of neon through the front room window and I get an inkling this is going to be an interesting shoot. Gill wrote to me, asking if I could photograph her for this project. “I’m a big smiler so I’d like people to remember me for being happy, rather than for being the girl who died of cancer.”
As we sit in her incredible house which is covered in art, I get a sense of her personality. Each print on the wall is a clue to her buzzing wit and dark sense of humour. Her love of music is all around us with kitsch and colourful illustrations of Thin Lizzy, Elton John and Queen. She has a certain style that reminds me of my own. We even have the same neon lightning bolt.