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I suspect most of us don’t spend too much time considering how we are going to exit this world when our time comes. A normal death after a long life will do me fine thank you very much and preferably while I’m asleep so I don’t know too much about it. I don’t want anything painful either but unfortunately, we don’t usually get to choose.

There was a story in a 1989 edition of the Orlando Sentinel about a convicted murderer in South Carolina who was on death row but had successfully appealed against being sent to the electric chair. On the face of it, you would think his luck was in, but it was not to be.

In 1977, Michael Goodwin from South Carolina robbed a woman at knifepoint and was sent to prison. Three years later, when he was 21 years old, he was allowed out on work release. Soon after that, the body of a twenty-four-year-old woman, Mary Elizabeth Royem, was found in her apartment. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death with an electric iron.

Goodwin was later charged with her murder, went on trial in 1981 and was convicted. He was also found guilty of sexual assault and sentenced to die in South Carolina’s electric chair. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1983, after a retrial cleared him of the sexual assault.

Goodwin was still electrocuted, but not in the traditional manner. He accidently turned his own toilet into a “homemade electric chair.” Francis Archibald, the State Corrections spokesman, reported that the 28-year-old inmate was attempting to fix a pair of earphones so he could watch TV. At some point Godwin bit into the wire, electrocuting himself on his toilet.

‘It was a strange accident’, Archibald said. ‘He was sitting naked on a metal commode.” The County Coroner said Godwin was severely burned in his mouth and tongue and an investigation ruled the electrocution was an accident.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the human body is naturally resistant to the flow of electricity. However, nearly 100% of this resistance is only effective at the skin level. For example, dry and calloused skin is much more resistant than the wet, and salty tissues beneath.

This is why a lightning strike might only leave skin-deep burns, while a small current of electricity can enter the body, surge through the heart and cause fatal electric shock. The seriousness of the shock has less to do with the power of the surge, and more to do with how the electric current enters the body.

This might explain why Godwin was safe while he was handling the wire but, by putting the wire in his mouth, he gave the electricity an open invitation to use his body as a “middle-man” between the wire and the metal toilet.

Now, they say that lightening never strikes the same place twice but that obviously doesn’t apply to metal toilets in prison because it happened again in 1997. According to United Press International, Pennsylvania authorities said a convicted killer accidentally electrocuted himself at the state prison in Pittsburgh.

Lawrence Baker was wearing homemade headphones connected to his television when he sat on a stainless-steel toilet in his cell. The water-filled commode completed an electrical circuit from the TV, sending a lethal jolt through his body. The County Coroner ruled Baker’s death accidental following an autopsy.

These weren’t the only guys to die in strange circumstances either. There are some other tales too, like the one about an unidentified man who used a shotgun as a club to break a former girlfriend’s car windshield. He accidentally shot himself dead when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his body.

Another guy was killed as he was trying to repair what police described as a “farm-type truck.” He got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while he hung underneath so he could find the source of a troubling noise. His clothes caught on something, however, and the driver found him “wrapped around the drive shaft.”

Ken Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself dead, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed. He reached for the phone but grabbed a Smith & Wesson 38 Special instead, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto Skyscraper crashed through a pane when he barged it with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said he fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower as he was explaining the strength of the building’s windows to visiting law students.

He had previously conducted the demonstration without incident according to police reports and was “one of the best and brightest” members of the company.

Some people do get the option to choose their method of dying though. Armin Meiwes was a 42-year-old computer expert, who spent his spare time helping friends with car repairs and gardening in Germany. A friendly guy, he was considered the perfect neighbour, but Armin had a dark secret.

He had a taste for human flesh, and in 2001, he posted an ad on the internet looking for a “young, well-built man that wanted to be eaten”. Surprisingly, he received a reply. Bernd Brandes was a 36-year-old computer engineer from Berlin, who had always dreamed of being eaten and offered himself for the flesh-eating fantasy.

Meiwes fed Brandes sleeping pills, slit his throat and cut his body into several small pieces. Then he boiled the flesh, set the table, and poured himself a large glass of red wine to go with his meal. By the time he was caught, Meiwes had eaten over 45 pounds of Brandes’ human flesh.

Thirty years ago, on February 12, 1993, Frank McCarthy, aged 24, who lived with his parents in Lotamore, Mayfield. went missing. Soon after, Cathal O’Brien also disappeared, along with his friend, Kevin Ball from Wales.

Then a fourth man, Denis ‘Patch’ O’Driscoll, vanished in December, 1994. Gardaí discovered that three of the missing men had known each other at various times, and all had spent time in bedsits at a property in Wellington Terrace in Cork city.

The garda investigation led them to that property, which was later dubbed ‘the House of Horrors’, and attention focused on a local man, Fred Flannery, who had also lived in the property.

Back in the 1990s, Fred Flannery was well known to the gardaí and known to sleep rough in the woods around Mayfield and Glanmire.

By 1993 and 1994, the years of the disappearances, he was living in 9, Wellington Terrace, a house overlooking Kent Railway Station that had been converted into flats. Patrick ‘Patch’ O’Driscoll, a friend of his, also stayed there from time to time. He was a 32-year-old from Cork city and got his nickname from an eye patch he wore.

Some years earlier, he was a passenger in a stolen car driven by Fred Flannery. The car crashed and ‘Patch’ lost an eye. Late night parties in the property at Wellington Terrace were commonplace with alcohol, drugs and magic mushrooms allegedly consumed in large quantities. It was during one of these parties that events turned chaotic.

The story began in February, 1993, with the disappearance of Frank ‘Blackie’ McCarthy. He was 24 years old and had just been released from prison after serving a nine-month sentence. He met a friend that afternoon for a few drinks and they arranged to meet again later in the evening. Frank McCarthy left his home to meet his friend, but never showed up.

He disappeared without a trace, but the finger of suspicion was pointed at Fred Flannery. Shortly before going to prison, McCarthy had had a disagreement with him.

A few months later, in the summer of 1993, a young man from Kilmore in Co. Wexford came to live in Cork. Cathal O’Brien, a 23-year-old, had graduated from Waterford RTC and was doing some voluntary work with the Cork Simon Community in Lower John Street. He rented a flat in the same house as the Flannerys at 9, Wellington Terrace.

While working with Cork Simon, Cathal met Kevin Ball, a 42-year-old new age traveller from Wales. They became friendly and O’Brien invited him to move out of the shelter and share his flat in Wellington Terrace. Ball happily accepted the offer and moved in with him.

The following year, in April, 1994, the O’Brien family reported their son missing and it was then discovered that Ball had also disappeared.

Flannery claimed that Cathal O’Brien and Kevin Ball had gone travelling around England. At this stage, the case was being treated as a missing persons investigation and detailed descriptions were circulated to foreign police forces without success. Things changed in January, 1995, when Patch O’Driscoll was reported missing by his brother.

Patch had previously told him of strange events taking place in 9, Wellington Terrace, and because of that, he feared for his brother’s life. He told his story to the gardaí in MacCurtain Street garda station and that initiated a full-scale investigation.

We’ll never know exactly what happened in that house, but it was alleged there was a party in April, 1994 with Flannery, Patch O’Driscoll, Kevin Ball, Cathal O’Brien, and possibly one other.

At some point, Kevin Ball is said to have questioned how Patch could still be friendly with the man responsible for him losing his eye. Flannery got annoyed at this and left the flat. Ball was allegedly later beaten on the head with a hammer and died. Cathal O’Brien tried to stop this assault, but also lost his life.

The bodies of the two men were said to have been rolled in a carpet, removed from the house and buried at an unknown location.

In the Autumn of 1994, Patch O’Driscoll was very uneasy about the killings and having nightmares. in December of that year, he was also allegedly killed in Wellington Terrace. It was later testified in court that Flannery had admitted killing Mr O’Driscoll at the flat by hitting him with a hammer and  had cut up the body with a bowsaw and a Stanley knife.

No bodies were found, but Fred Flannery was charged with the murder of O’Driscoll. His trial in 1996 collapsed. Part of O’Driscoll’s body was later discovered in woodlands on the outskirts of Cork city, identified by a false eye and a sock with a diamond pattern as described at the trial by Michael Flannery.

No trace has ever been found of the other men. Flannery took his own life in 2002.

Children are messy creatures. When they’re young, you spend the day running around after them, putting toys away, cleaning up the various spillages and picking up their discarded clothes. It’s tiring but you don’t mind because they don’t know any better and you naively console yourself that it’s only short term. Life will get easier as they mature.

Those of you with grown up children know that is absolute nonsense. Teenagers get messier as they get older. They take untidiness to a new level. They can transform a tidy bedroom into a disaster area in minutes. They would rather tunnel under a mountain of dirty clothes to reach the bed than put them in the wash basket.

The bed can also double as a wardrobe, just leaving a little space among all the clutter to sleep in. That, apparently, is easier than tidying up and using the bed for its original purpose, and I have some more bad news for young parents. It doesn’t change when they hit their twenties and thirties either.

I can’t remember whether I was tidy kid or not, but I do know that I left home when I was twenty to make my own way in the world. Kids remain at home longer these because it’s harder to flee the nest while affordable properties are scarce, and mortgages are difficult to come by.

My wife and I own an adult child. He’s a grand young lad but he takes more looking after now than he did when he was six. He doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to leave either and why would he? He likes it here. He has a roof over his head, has his own tv room, and he’s fed and watered. His laundry is taken care of and his mother fusses over him as much as she did when he was a toddler, so, what’s not to like?

Lots of his buddies are in the same boat so our situation isn’t unique and from what I hear from other parents, the untidy young adult isn’t an unusual species either. The chaotic bedroom scene is standard with chaos and disarray is everywhere, but whose fault is it?

The blame lays with us for not training them but we didn’t know much better ourselves. We were reared by the traditional Irish mammy who did everything in the house and that’s been the way for generations.

I didn’t wash a cup, make a bed or use a hoover until I left home and entered the garda training centre in Templemore. One of the first lessons we got as recruits was in bed making. We sat in the large recreation hall which had a stage at one end. A bed was placed in the centre of the stage and one of the instructors gave a demonstration on how they expected us to make our beds every day for the duration of our stay. Bedrooms were inspected regularly and there would be consequences if beds were found undressed.

At the time, most of us thought this bed making lark was a bit over the top, but it soon became a daily routine, and it’s followed me through my life. It taught us discipline and making the bed first thing in the morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. They also taught us about keeping our personal space clean and tidy which was another new experience for me.

A relationship expert was quoted on the Internet as saying, “Many men were raised by parents who didn’t expect them to do much around the house, so this is very deeply engrained conditioning.” Women are often trained from a young age to look after themselves, and to measure cleanliness as a measure of self-worth so they become more uncomfortable when something isn’t clean and tidy, while their partner might not even notice.

When I was growing up, my mother never asked my father to do anything around the house. I remember getting ready for school in the morning and before my father left for work, his breakfast was put in front of him. When he came in from work in the middle of the day, his dinner was put on the table and when he finished in the evening, he had his tea. He didn’t boil as much as an egg.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how or wasn’t interested, he just wasn’t allowed. He would probably have been charged with be trespassing if he went near the cooker, it wasn’t his place. The range was off limits to him as was the ironing board and the washing machine.

In the early years we were living with my grandparents, and my grandfather was always in the way. My grandmother was forever moving him around the kitchen while he sat listening to the wireless, a big beast of a thing that sat on a shelf in the corner of the kitchen. The wireless was the beast, not the grandfather.

My grandmother always seemed to be attached to the range, cooking and baking and my mother was her assistant. Together they kept the house intact. These days, most men are proficient in the use of an oven and a sweeping brush.

Phyllis Diller, the American actress had her own observations about housework. She said cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shovelling the driveway before it stops snowing. Joan Rivers wasn’t a fan of housework either. She said, “I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes — and six months later you have to start all over again.”

According to Oscar Wilde, man is made for something better than disturbing dirt but I have no intention of suggesting that to my wife.

Some things in this world are difficult to explain. Take the Bermuda Triangle for example. Many planes and ships have gone missing in this area of the Atlantic Ocean. They were recorded as having entered the triangle but then disappeared without a trace. Bad weather, hurricanes and human error have all been blamed but the circumstances are still mysterious.

The presence of alien beings walking among us has intrigued many. While most of us dismiss the idea, many point the finger at Area 51 in the Nevada Desert, which is controlled by the U.S. Air Force. This property is surrounded by secrecy and conspiracy theorists are convinced that captured alien spacecraft are being examined there and evidence of UFO’s is being covered up.

In 1872, the Mary Celeste set sail from New York Harbour on its way to Italy. On board were the ship’s captain, Benjamin S. Briggs, his wife, Sarah, and their 2-year-old daughter, Sophia, along with eight crewmembers. Less than a month later, a passing British ship spotted the Mary Celeste at full sail and adrift with no sign of the captain, his family or any of the crew.

Aside from several feet of water in the hold and a missing lifeboat, the ship was undamaged and loaded with six months’ worth of food and water.

Closer to home, we all regularly experience incidents in our lives that cause us to wonder if other forces are at work, but we usually attribute these to coincidence. Like when you are thinking about someone, and they suddenly appear at your front door. Or just as you were about to call someone, that person suddenly rings you instead. Coincidence or not?

National Geographic reported that your odds of being killed by a meteor are 1 in 1,600,000. So, the odds would seem infinitesimally small that a meteor, which had been flying through space for more than four-and-a-half billion years without hitting a target, would hit the home of a family with the last name “Commette.” According to Time magazine, in a bizarre case of cosmic synchronicity, that is exactly what happened to one family in France.

Thankfully, no one was hurt, and the Commettes are now the proud owners of their own extremely rare extra-terrestrial rock.

The reason I’m banging on about this is because I have had my own experience of coincidence and I think it’s a bit freaky.

I transferred from Blarney Garda Station to Mayfield in 1990 and one of the first people I met there was John O’Connor. We were on the same unit, so we worked together every day and soon became friends. After a couple of years, I moved into the community policing section which was just being formed at the time and not too long afterwards, John joined me.

In the mid-nineties, we both developed an interest in what was happening in Belarus in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and we ended up raising awareness and collecting humanitarian aid for distribution to schools, hospitals, orphanages and day care centres in that part of the world affected by the radiation fallout.

We decided to up the ante a few years later and in 1999 we arranged to drive a truck load of aid to Belarus. Neither of us had a truck licence, so we found a driving instructor and took lessons. We did our driving tests on the same day and both of us passed. We borrowed a truck and off we went.

I got promoted in 2000 and left Mayfield but a few years later, found myself back in community policing in Anglesea St. in the city centre. John got promoted shortly after me and went to Cyprus for a stint with the UN. When he returned to Cork, he took charge of community policing in the northside of the city, so we were back working together again.

John introduced me to Cyprus, and we became regular visitors and on one occasion we had planned to fly from Gatwick to Larnaca. John had booked his flight the day after me and when we were boarding the aircraft, I asked him what seat he was in, and he showed me his boarding card. It turned out we were sitting together even though we had both opted for random seating.

In 2013, I followed in John’s footsteps and did a stint in Cyprus with the UN and we both have many mutual friends there now.

I’ve had a dodgy back for a long time and when I was leaving Cyprus last November, I slipped on a wet floor in an elevator. I grabbed the handrail to prevent a fall, but I knew the jolt had affected my back. I was only home a day when it went into spasm. My GP called to the house and gave me an injection, but my left leg was numb, so he sent me for an MRI and suggested having it looked at by a consultant. I got an appointment to attend the Mater Hospital in Cork on 9^th January.

John had also been suffering with back trouble for a few years and he had been attending the same consultant in the Mater. They had tried a range of methods to solve his issue without success and he was also given an appointment on 9^th January, the same day as me, to examine further options.

His appointment was in the morning, and he rang me afterwards to tell me he was scheduled to go for surgery on 12^th January. I visited the same consultant in the afternoon on the same day and I left his office with an appointment for surgery on 30^th January.

Our lives are following a very similar path, so I really hope he lives a long and healthy life.

Eir claims to be the country’s biggest and best network with Ireland’s fastest broadband. If you click on their website, you will find a blurb proclaiming their vision for the future of the company. ‘Our vision is to be at the centre of your digital world. We’re here to help you work, play and learn, to connect everyone and everything from large cities to small villages.’

‘Everything we do is built around our customers. You’re an essential part of our vision of a brighter, modern more dynamic future. At home, on the go or in the office, we aim to make things easier with 24/7 tech support, longer opening hours and an improved customer experience for you.’

That sounds great, but as a long-suffering customer of Eir, I can tell you my experience is completely at variance with their vision and I’m not the only one. The Irish Examiner reported earlier this year that Eir had faced high levels of customer complaints, something it claimed to have largely brought under control.

Last May, they claimed they had turned a corner in terms of its customer care issues, citing new figures from regulator Comreg showing a fall-off in complaints. The Irish Times reported that many punters would probably take this with a pinch of salt and said the company, principally for its atrocious record in dealing with customer queries and problems, has turned into one of those companies, consumers love to hate.

Eir claimed they were aware of the problem and were attempting to fix it. Chief executive Oliver Loomes said their utter focus was on improving the quality of their customer service.

At the worst point, call waiting times were averaging about an hour while customers complained of calls being dropped and of routine issues being left unresolved. The company later apologised for the poor performance.

That was back in May and whatever about the chief executive’s utter focus being on improving the quality of customer service, I can say without fear of contradiction, I haven’t seen any improvement. From my experience of dealing with their customer service recently, I am of the opinion that it is so bad, it can’t possibly get any worse.

In 2019, I spent a stressful six months dealing with Eir, trying to resolve an issue over incorrect billing. I lost count of the number of calls my wife and I made to them, but we were certainly in regular contact. Each time we got through, we had to explain the problem to a new person. Most of these calls lasted anywhere between fifteen and thirty miniutes.

After each call, I was assured the problem was sorted, only to receive a further text message or phone call threatening to suspend our service if the bill wasn’t paid. My wife’s phone was cut off at one point while we were on holidays and the incorrect bills continued to arrive. Finally, at the end of my tether, I contacted the Communications Regulator, and the matter was eventually resolved.

Last year, 2022, I was in regular contact with Eir again in relation to the poor quality of our broadband service. Three new routers were delivered to me over the course of the year, none of which made a blind bit of difference to the signal. In August I was advised that fibre broadband would soon be available to me, so I signed up for it thinking it could only be an improvement on what I had.

In the meantime, while I was waiting for the installation, the Internet had deteriorated to such an extent that we were reduced to using our data on the mobile phones while at home. I kept ringing Eir and they told me repeatedly they couldn’t do anything for me because I had signed up for the fibre broadband and this somehow prevented them from improving with my signal.

It seemed that all hope now rested with the fibre broadband, so I was delighted when I was given an installation date of 30^th November 2022. Two guys duly arrived on that date, but they couldn’t find the ducting for the existing line and advised me to have the footpath dug up, at my expense, to locate it. They also discovered a blockage in the ducting out on the roadway and they would summon another crew to look at that.

I located the pipe within an hour and contacted Eir to let them know. They told me it had nothing to do with them. It was up to the contractors to bring in the line and deal with the blockage. I contacted the contractors and a few days later a different crew arrived but they couldn’t clear it either. I rang the contractor again to be told another crew with larger equipment would have to dig up the road and that was Eir’s responsibility.

On 15^th December I received a text message from Eir advising me that my broadband order was in progress and was due to be completed in six weeks, so I rang them again. I explained how I still had no fibre broadband, and my footpath now had a large hole in it.

The lady I spoke to promised to contact the contractor to get an exact date for the work and she would ring me back. I’m still waiting for that call but that doesn’t surprise me. Eir staff often promised me a return call from a supervisor within 48 hours, but I haven’t got one yet.

Four days later, on Monday 19^th December, I got another text message from Eir telling me my installation had been arranged for the following day. That didn’t happen either and the latest date I have is March 14^th.

Their chief executive might be happy with the service, but I’m certainly not.

My mother loved to travel. She never complained about going long distances, delayed flights or hanging around airports waiting for connecting flights. She considered that to be part of the holiday experience and took it in her stride, but I reckon the chaos in airports at the beginning of last summer would have tested even her if she were still with us.

Fortunately, I have inherited some of her tolerance so I’m usually very patient on my travels except for long haul journeys. I’ve been to Australia twice and there won’t be a third time. My body isn’t designed to be strapped into a confined space for thirty hours and jet lag is bad for the system.

Short flights are fine, and I like being on my own so as long as I have my Kindle with me, I’m happy. Flying isn’t for everyone though and for many people, air travel presents a major challenge. Take-off and landing are a particular problem for nervous passengers. The thought of that alone can be so stressful they would rather not bother and that’s a pity because it limits their travel options.

Air travel has become more straight forward over the years, with the introduction of online booking, online check-in and paperless boarding cards. It’s usually seamless although things did get a little bit complicated during Covid 19. Requirements for PCR tests, flight passes, passenger locator forms and proof of vaccination meant there was lots of documentation.

The PCR tests were tricky because they had to be taken 72 hours before arriving at your destination and it wasn’t always easy to get the timing right particularly where connecting flights were involved so there was a little anxiety when the paperwork was being checked. Those requirements differed from one place to the next and often changed during course of a holiday too which didn’t help but we survived.

With Covid out of the way, restrictions were eased, and we were happy to take to the skies until we were hit with more obstacles. A shortage of ground crew in airports meant delays with check-in, long queues for security checks, cancelled and missed flights, and lost luggage. Cancelled or delayed flights are inconvenient at the best of times but again when connecting flights are involved, things get even more complicated. It can also result in added expense.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the manpower issue forced some airports to introduce restrictions to the number of daily flights they could accept and that created more uncertainty. The talk of potential strike action raised our anxiety further.

These setbacks are out of our control and no matter how organised we are, our plans can sometimes be scuppered and that fear of the unexpected can cause a rise in the blood pressure. But these aren’t the only things we worry about when getting a flight.

Airport Industry Review published the results of a survey which identified the main concerns for air travellers and packing for the holidays ranked amongst the five most stressful stages of travelling through an airport. Particularly for women.

That didn’t surprise me because I know certain people who find it difficult to pack a suitcase for a two-week holiday in the sun without bringing outfits for the cold and the rain even when travelling to countries that haven’t seen either in years. They have day wear and evening wear and something extra in case of unexpected births, deaths and marriages, but by the time they come home they haven’t used a fraction of what they brought. 

The survey also found that travellers often fear they’ve forgotten something and left it at home. Apparently, this causes a huge amount of stress which is completely unreasonable because unless you are travelling to the heart of the Amazon, you can buy whatever you need in most holiday destinations these days. So even if you have forgotten something it doesn’t really matter. As long as you have a passport, credit card and your boarding pass, you’re good to go.

Getting to the airport was also listed as a challenging part of the travelling experience. Fear of being delayed with traffic jams or lengthy check-ins at the airport reached the top four of the list, especially for large families. Security checks, baggage reclaim and being on time for a connecting flight also ranked highly.

One thing that was missing from the list though, was airport car parks. I was returning a rental car to an airport last year and the electronic barrier refused go up. I was sitting there while a queue built up behind me. I tried to summon assistance, but nobody answered. Pressing buttons and cursing at the machine didn’t help either so a few cars had to reverse to allow me get out of the way, leaving me red faced and sweaty.

On another occasion, I was collecting people at Larnaca Airport and ended up at a barrier that wouldn’t let me out. Thankfully it was quiet, so I was able to escape without much of a fuss. It was my own fault this time for taking a wrong turn, but in my defence, it wasn’t clearly marked either.

I went to Edinburgh for New Year’s Eve and decided to leave the car in the long-term car park in Cork. When I returned, I hurried to collect it because it was raining. It was dark when I parked it and the place looked different in the daylight and I couldn’t find it. After fifteen minutes, I was drenched and as a last resort, I looked in an area I though it couldn’t possibly be but, lo and behold, there it was.

I have no problem with packing, security checks or flying, but the car parks always seem to cause me problems.

Sergeant Major Daniel “Dan” Joseph Daly is a very famous name in the USA. He was a Marine who won more awards for bravery than you could shake a stick at, and they say he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of enemy soldiers. 

In one incident in Haiti in 1915, he is reputed to have killed seven men with his knife while recovering a large machine gun from the enemy. On another occasion he singlehandedly defended a post until reinforcements arrived and he rescued several men while under fire and brought them to safety.

Few have heard of him in this neck of the woods which is strange because Sgt Major Dan Daly may have been born in Cork near Crookstown. A gentleman in Co. Kilkenny was researching his ancestral heritage when he came across information indicating Daly could be Irish by birth.

He discovered that a John Daly and his wife Ellen, who lived near Cloughduv, had emigrated to America in the eighteen hundreds. They had a child, but they didn’t register him with the authorities until he was three years old and so for the rest of his life, he would be three years older than stated on his birth certificate. It seems that boy could have grown up to become the famous Marine.

In the history of the United States Marine Corps, Sergeant Daniel Daly is considered a legend.  He earned enough awards to decorate a small army, so he must have been something special. He wasn’t a big man in the physical sense, he was only five foot-six and about 9 stone or 135pounds, but he had plenty of courage and was a natural born leader.

Daly was fearless and well respected among officers and enlisted men and epitomized what it meant to be a Marine. He received the Medal of Honour, the Nation’s highest military award, not once but twice, for separate acts of heroism. He also received the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, three Letters of Commendation and a Good Conduct Medal with two bronze stars.

As if that wasn’t enough, he also received a China Relief Expedition Medal, a Philippine Campaign Medal, an Expeditionary Medal with one bronze star, a Mexican Service Medal, a Haitian Campaign Medal, a World War I Victory Medal with Aisne, St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne and Defensive-Sector clasps, a Medaille Militaire, a Croix de Guerre with Palm and the Fourragere.

He could have capitalised on his fame, but he didn’t like publicity and he described the fuss made over him as “a lot of foolishness.” His colleagues described him as a strict disciplinarian, but fair at the same time. They say he had a reckless daring but was always concerned about his men. He was offered a commission on several occasions but said that he would prefer to be “an outstanding sergeant than just another officer.” 

During desperate fighting in 1918 while they were taking a severe beating while outnumbered, outgunned, and pinned down, Sergeant Major Daly ordered an attack and shouted to his tired men, “Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?” It was a battle cry he denied ever using because an NCO in the US Marines did not use bad language.

In May 1900, he landed in China with the U.S. Marines. Daly was part of the U.S. Embassy Guard in Peking when the Boxer Rebellion broke out. In one of the most memorable acts of that war, the Boxers surrounded the compound of the foreign legations in Peking and laid siege to it for 55 days.

At one point, when German Marines of the German embassy were forced back, Daly by himself took a position in a bastion on the Tarter Wall and remained there throughout the night and was subjected to sniper fire and numerous attacks. When relieved in the morning Daly was still holding his position with the bodies of numerous attackers surrounding his position. For this he was awarded his first Medal of Honour.

His second Medal of Honour came 15 years later in 1915, when he was fighting with US forces supporting the government in Haiti against rebels. One night, he was part of a group of 35 Marines ambushed by a force of approximately 400 Haitian insurgents. He led one of the three groups of men during the fight to reach a nearby fort and was awarded the medal for his bravery.

While on patrol in the same conflict, a Company of Marines were crossing a river when they were attacked by approximately 400 concealed insurgents. A horse that was carrying the heavy machine gun was shot and killed and lay in the river with the gun attached to him. Dan Daly volunteered to recover the machine gun and they say he killed up to 7 Cacos Rebels with just a knife and as he was cutting the straps that held the machine gun in place.

With bullets hitting the water all around him, he returned to his Company with the machine gun strapped to his back. At dawn the next day the Marines advanced in 3 directions surprising the Rebels forcing them to scatter.

During World War I, at the battle of Belleau Wood, he risked his life to extinguish a fire in an ammunition dump. Two days later, he single-handedly attacked an enemy machine gun emplacement, capturing it using only hand grenades and an automatic pistol. In the course of that battle, he was wounded three times.

Sgt. Major Dan Daly retired officially in 1929, and worked as a bank guard on Wall Street, New York City. He died at Glendale, Long Island, New York, 28 April 1937 and his remains are buried in Cypress Hills. 

Not a bad record for a lad from Crookstown, Co. Cork.

As a young garda in Blackrock, Co. Dublin in the early eighties I went to the main street one evening to deal with an incident. It was around teatime and the usual rush hour traffic had come to a complete standstill. The reason for the upheaval soon became obvious.

A large crane had been operating earlier on a nearby building site. They finished work for the day, so the crane was unattended, with its arm extended out over the main street. Some guy had managed to climb up onto the arm of the crane and he was threatening to jump. It was a first for me.

Negotiations were underway to encourage him to come down, while at the same time, members of the fire service were making their way slowly up the ladder of the crane. This went on for some time and the traffic by then was chaotic. Cars were bumper to bumper, nothing was moving, and tempers were beginning to fray. Car horns were sounding and whatever sympathy existed for this unfortunate character earlier on was quickly disappearing.

Suddenly a guy jumped out of his car and shouted abuse at the guy on the crane before getting back into his car and slamming the door. You could almost see the steam coming out of his ears. Fortunately, the-would-be jumper was later brought safely down by the firemen, and the traffic slowly but surely, got back to its normal rush hour crawl.

That was over forty years ago, and fortunately things have changed a lot since then. These days the world is more tuned into mental health issues. If the same set of circumstances presented themselves today, the guy on the crane would be treated more sympathetically. At least I would hope so.

Suicide is a sensitive subject and opinion is often divided on whether the victim’s action should be condemned or condoned. Some say that suicide is a waste of a life when so many are fighting disease and struggling to live. Others will argue that the unfortunate victims are not in control of their senses at that time and are therefore unfit to make rational decisions.

Unfortunately, in my time in An Garda Siochana I had to deal with quite a few incidents of suicide. I tried to remain detached as much as possible, but when you’re dealing with the families, in the course of the normal investigation that occurs after such an event, it is difficult not to become emotionally involved to a certain extent. 

Nothing can prepare a policeman for dealing with bereaved families. You can be trained in procedures and how to complete the paperwork required for the investigation, but there is no training that can prepare you for knocking on the front door of a house to tell the parents of some young person that their child won’t be coming home.

It is one of the most difficult tasks that any policeman will ever have to undertake. It’s a lonely path walking up to that front door. There is no manual to refer to, there are no rules and no hiding place. At that stage you’re relying on gut instinct and empathy.

In the aftermath of those events, I often questioned whether I could have handled them better, but it is impossible to know because feedback is rare. The families have only one thing on their mind, and it doesn’t include worrying about how you feel about yourself or how you performed your duty. But it did happen one time.

One night many years ago, I was approached by an elderly man. I didn’t know him, but he identified himself as the grandfather of a young lad who had committed suicide some years before. I had been involved in the case and I remembered it vividly for reasons I won’t go into for fear of identifying that family.

He took my hand in his and he looked me straight in the eye and he told me that I would never know what I had done for his family. He thanked me and then walked away.

That had a profound effect on me, and I have never forgotten it. It took an effort for that man to approach me and say what he did, and I will be forever grateful that he took the time to do so. That is as much of an acknowledgement as you can wish for that you did something right.

A friend of mine took his own life a few years back and I remember going to the funeral home to pay my respects to the family. When I saw him laid out in the coffin, I was angry with him for doing what he did. I was annoyed that he hadn’t said something. I had been with him a few days earlier and hadn’t noticed anything and I wanted to throttle him for not speaking up. It was a reaction that was based more on grief than logic.

Experts tell us that many people find themselves under pressure at this time of the year. Thankfully there is more understanding of mental health these days and greater awareness of the help that is available so hopefully those who need it will reach out instead of taking that ultimate step.

The advice from the professionals is clear. If you can’t think of solutions other than suicide, it isn’t that other solutions don’t exist, but rather that you are currently unable to see them. The intense emotional pain that you’re experiencing in that moment can distort your thinking, so it becomes harder to see possible solutions, or to connect with those who can offer support.

Therapists, counsellors, friends or loved ones can help you to see solutions but you must give them a chance to help.

The subject of living conditions in modern prisons is something that can start many arguments. On the face of it, life doesn’t seem that bad on the inside. For many of the inmates, living conditions in prison are an improvement on what they would be used to on the outside.

They have a roof over their heads, regular mealtimes, recreation, access to education and health care so they are well cared for. They are in this country at any rate, but they might be even better off in other jurisdictions.

RTE reported that The Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO) called for a well-resourced, transparent, fair and expeditious repatriation system to allow prisoners abroad serve the remainder of their sentences in Ireland. It is estimated that at any one time, there are up to 1,200 Irish people in prison overseas in approximately 30 countries around the world.

I didn’t know that and neither did I know that a significant majority of those are in prisons in the UK, with relatively high numbers in the USA, Australia and throughout Europe. Those prisoners can apply to transfer to an Irish prison to serve the remainder of their sentence here, but it seems that many of them are happy enough to stay where they are.

The ICPO circulated 1,100 questionnaires to Irish prisoners abroad and received only 114 anonymous responses. That’s just over 10% which suggests there wasn’t much interest in the survey, or else the prisoners don’t want to move.

Serving time can’t be easy though, whether it’s home or away, and some of those who did respond reported experiencing mental health difficulties, feelings of isolation and having little time outside their cell. The lack of visits was also an issue, which isn’t surprising. I would expect prisoners to feel isolated and to have an issue with being confined in a small space with little time outside. That’s what prison is all about.

It’s also understandable that overseas prisoners might be suffering from lack of visits. If you end up in an Australian prison, the family won’t be popping over every weekend with a food parcel. Unless you have a large circle of friends living in that country, visits are going to be few and far between and that’s tough but so it should be.

There has to be an element of discomfort associated with prison life. It is after all, supposed to be a deterrent so I was surprised when I heard that inmates in some prisons here were going to have analogue telephones installed in their cells. I thought it was a step too far but according to an article in the Irish Examiner, it has already happened.

Landline telephones have been installed in 804 prison cells, and work is underway to extend the convenience to every inmate in the State. Four of the country’s 12 detention facilities now have an analogue telephone in every cell, meaning inmates in Castlerea, Cloverhill, Limerick and Midlands prisons can make phone calls without leaving their rooms.

The purchase and installation of the equipment has cost a total of €1,131,688 to date, and it’s intended to provide “in-cell telephony” for prisoners in Cork, Portlaoise, Wheatfield, and the Dóchas Centre by the end of this year. The system currently allows outgoing calls only, although a spokesman for the Irish Prison Service (IPS) said a “dial-in” system may be considered in future.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee said maintaining contact with family and friends while in custody plays an important role in the rehabilitation of prisoners. “The in-cell telephony project will enhance the prison service’s ability to provide prisoners with a platform to support this contact,” she said.

They’ve done the same thing in the UK where they say family ties are a vital part of rehabilitation and maintaining those ties can cut reoffending by 40%, ultimately helping to reduce the number of future victims of crime. We’ll have to wait and see how that works out.

Prisoners already have contact with their families through in-person visits and during Covid 19, video calls were introduced which many prisoners preferred because they got to see more family members on a video call than they would in person. It also saved their visitors from having to travel and from the security checks necessary in the prison system.

Prisoners are entitled to be treated humanely but some argue that the prison system is too accommodating. Many of their victims want to see offenders suffer. They want payback and would prefer to see them locked up, fed on bread and water, and the key thrown away.

Others would welcome a return to the days of hard labour. Back to the chain gangs where prisoners had to lay railway tracks or break rocks like Paul Newman did in the movie, ‘Cool Hand Luke’.

Regardless of the conditions though, it is the lack of freedom that tests them. Not being able to spend time with the family at Christmas, go for a pint, walk the dog or go to a football game are the things that challenge them. That’s the real punishment.

And that’s ok too. Prison isn’t meant to be a holiday camp. Offenders are incarcerated as a punishment for the wrongs they have done but the system is also meant to rehabilitate them. To prepare them for reintegration to society on completion of their sentence. But is it working?

The high proportion of inmates re-offending, and the demand for more prison space would seem to suggest there is a weakness in the system. If having a phone in a cell can change that outcome and help to break the cycle of life for inmates, then maybe it’s worth a shot. If it works, we will all benefit, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all.

If you ever find yourself down by the river in Whitepoint, just outside the town of Cobh, you will see the remains of an old pier sloping into the water. It doesn’t look like much. In fact, you would hardly recognise it as a pier because it has fallen into disrepair over the last fifty years or so. You shouldn’t dismiss it though because it has a serious piece of history attached to it.

It’s known as the American Pier because it was extended by the United States armed forces in 1917. It was needed to bring the sick and injured ashore for treatment in the hospital they had also built to cater for their wounded servicemen. To get a better understanding of this we need to go back in time to 1917 and the first world war.

At that time, the British had imposed a ‘distant blockade’, blocking off the North Sea to most shipping and cargoes, to cut off supplies bound for Germany. In early 1917, the Germans retaliated by doing the same thing to Britain and used their U-boat fleet to defend it. They declared the area around the British Isles to be a war zone and warned that any ships entering that space would be sunk without warning.

The German submarine campaign was already worrying the United States, but this new development had them even more concerned. They were afraid Britain would be overrun by the Germans, so they decided to send support to the British Navy who were already operating out of Cork Harbour. On 4 May 1917, a flotilla of destroyers arrived in Queenstown under the command of Commander Joseph Taussig, captain of the USS Wadsworth.

In ‘The US Navy at Queenstown’ by Daire Brunicardi, he describes how the flotilla of unusual vessels appeared off the Daunt lightship at the approaches to Cork Harbour. They were destroyers of the United States Navy. With their low profile and four stubby funnels, they looked different to the ships of the British Navy, so familiar in Cork Harbour after almost three years of war.

The small naval dockyard on Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour and other dockyards and facilities in the area struggled to cope with the number of ships and men of the British and US navies. The naval hospital on Haulbowline and the local hospital in Queenstown were also overwhelmed by the amount of US personnel needing treatment for minor injuries and illnesses so they created their own medical facility in Whitepoint.

They built a naval hospital, recreational facilities, stores and radio communications, which extended from the town right out to Whitepoint. There was no shortage of equipment either. There were two depot ships, dozens of large motor-launch ‘sub-chasers’, tugs and even a squadron of submarines. Soon after, naval aircraft arrived, with air stations at Aghada in Cork Harbour, and on Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay.

There must have been a huge buzz in Cobh at the time with all that activity and in ‘The Queenstown Patrol 1917, a diary of Commander Joseph Taussig’, the author described the scene when he first arrived in Cork Harbour.

“We landed at the naval pier (Haulbowline) where the American Consul met us. The streets were full of curious people and there seemed to be a great many men for a country supposed to be at war. I have learned since that the Irish people have generally held aloof from any participation in the war and do not consider themselves a party to it.”

Taussig had some observations on the Irish countryside too as he later sailed up the river to Cork to call on the Lord Mayor. “The ride up the river is a beautiful one and took only forty minutes. Judging from the outside appearance, Ireland has not been affected in any way by the war. The country is green and dotted with cattle. The wharves at Cork were busy and the streets of Cork were crowded.”

He also described the task ahead of them. ”The problem before us was a serious one. As soon as we pass beyond the defence of the harbour, we face death until we return. We must presume that a submarine is always watching us, and although we may go for days without seeing a submarine or anything suspicious, we must not relax for an instant or we might lose our opportunity to destroy a submarine, or it may give the submarine a chance to fire a torpedo into us.”

According to Brunicardi, the Americans left Queenstown and Ireland in early 1919 and left little lasting effect. Many of the buildings were temporary timber structures, and most of these were removed. There are a few indicators to be seen today: the flying-boat bases at Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay and Aghada in Cork Harbour have left concrete aprons and slipways, and at Aghada there are two small concrete gateless gateposts, with ‘US Naval’ engraved on one and ‘Air Station’ on the other.

The pier in Whitepoint is a lasting reminder of the American presence in Cobh. Everything else was dismantled and shipped back to the States. Since then, the pier has been used by generations of Cobh families for swimming at this beautiful and sheltered beach area close to the town. It has deteriorated over the last half century and requires immediate attention before it disappears completely.

The American Pier Cobh Association has been set up to try to save the pier. The group is made up of residents of Whitepoint in association with Cobh Tidy Towns and other community groups and they want to return it to its former glory. They have commissioned a report by a group of consultants and are now looking for funding to repair the structure. Further information can be found at http://americanpiercobh.com/