Month: March 2019

Death is something that comes to us all and even though we can’t avoid it, it’s not a subject we like to talk about. Thankfully, I have no idea of what it’s like to die, and I have never been told that the end is near either, but since it’s inevitable, maybe we should put more of an effort into preparing ourselves for that kind of news.

I will have to face that prospect at some point, but I’m fine for now and not in any great hurry to be told that I have an appointment with the Grim Reaper.

I have, however, been in the company of people who have received bad news and while it’s a serious situation for them, being a spectator is an uncomfortable place to be as well. I have no idea how I would react to that prognosis, but I doubt that I would cope as bravely as some and I include my own family members in that list.

A friend of mine, Deena Walsh, died a few years ago. She knew she was terminally ill and she was prepared for what lay ahead of her, but she put up an amazing fight. Even when she knew there was nothing more that could be done for her, she remained calm and good humoured. She was very practical about what was to come, and she made sure she was prepared.

One day, she asked me if I would deliver her eulogy when the time came. This was a first for me and it shook me a bit. She told me she was going to be cremated and she wanted me to say something in the crematorium. She also said that I had to make the congregation laugh and if I didn’t achieve that, I would have failed her. No pressure.

That’s not an easy discussion to have with someone but she made it seem like an every-day, normal chat. The idea that I had to deliver a light-hearted eulogy to her grieving friends and family in a crematorium was setting a challenge, but she thought it was great.

We were driving to the CUH another day and she turned to me and without batting an eyelid, she asked me how the eulogy was coming along. I told her to stop talking and I tried to change the topic of conversation, but she wouldn’t have it. She told me that I should get a move on because time was running out. What do you say to someone in that situation?

When we arrived at the hospital, a staff member she had come to know, greeted her and asked her how she was getting on? In typical Deena fashion, she said; “Well, considering that I’m dying, I’m not too bad I suppose.” Deena showed amazing courage in the way she dealt with her prognosis and I have no idea how she managed it.

My father, mother and sister were also strong and calm in how they coped with the news of their impending deaths which suggests to me that there is a kind of acceptance that comes over people which should be reassuring for the rest of us who have yet to travel that road.

But while receiving that news is difficult, delivering it can’t be easy either but the doctors I saw in action on each occasion, did a great job. They were very compassionate and patient but got the message across at the same time.

Breaking news to a family member of the death of a loved one, is something I do have experience of and that’s not easy either.

There was a story that was regularly told to young gardaí as an example of how not to break bad news to a family.

The scene was somewhere on the west coast of Ireland. There had been an accident at sea and a small craft sank with the loss of all hands. The local garda in a small village was sent up to break the news to a local woman that her husband was missing, presumed drowned.

A storm was raging, and the rain was pouring down while the wind was howling. When he got to the house he was banging on the front door but there was no reply. Just as he was about to give up and leave, an elderly lady opened an upstairs window and stuck her head out. The garda asked her a couple of times if she was Mrs. Quinn but she couldn’t hear him above the noise of the wind.

So, he cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted up to her. “Are you the widow Quinn?” he asked.

“Indeed, I’m not.” she said. “My husbands at sea.”

The garda shouted back up to her, “Well if he is, he’s at the bottom of it.”

The first guy who told me this story swore it was true. Since then, many more have claimed to have been present on the night and witnessed it, in which case there must have been some crowd standing outside that window.

I found myself in similar situations during my previous life, but I like to think that I handled them a bit better. There’s no easy way to break that kind of news to somebody. It’s going to hurt whatever way you go about it, but you do your best and try to be as sensitive as possible.

The sight of a garda coming up the driveway can be unnerving at the best of times, and I was always aware that simply calling to a house to ask for directions could cause heart failure for the occupants. Delivering bad news doesn’t get any easier no matter how many times you do it.

Death is not an easy subject.

There’s been a bit of fuss over the code of ethics for An Garda Siochana that was introduced by the Policing Authority. It was designed to inform and guide the actions of every garda on what is expected of them as police officers. 

It reinforces the need for honesty and integrity, respect and equality, transparency and communication and a duty to speak up and report wrongdoing whenever they encounter it.

In the aftermath of the various controversies in An Garda Siochana, the Government instructed the Policing Authority to come up with guidelines and the code of ethics is the result. Josephine Feehily, the Policing Authority’s chairwoman, said it was vitally important that active steps were taken to ensure the code was embedded into the day-to-day work of gardaí.

My understanding is that gardai of all ranks are to receive training in the new code and are then required to sign up to it, but so far, the uptake by gardai in signing it, has been slow.

The Garda Representative Association doesn’t like it and complains that too much training and money is being spent on it when there is an urgent need for firearms training, driving courses and instruction on all the new pieces of legislation. I’m inclined to agree with them.

I have been retired for the last four years so I’m not in the loop anymore, but I’m not convinced that spending all this time, money and effort on developing a code of ethics is going to make much of a difference to way the men and women in blue, carry out their duty. Just because they sign a piece of paper saying that they have read the code is not going to guarantee the perfect police officer.

If someone is inherently dishonest, racist, corrupt, homophobic, or simply mad, then agreeing to abide by certain ethical standards is not going to cure them. I’m sure they won’t be deterred from taking part in wayward activities, if they are already that way inclined, simply because they’ve signed the dotted line, promising to be good.

In my day, we received instruction during our training in the Garda College on what was acceptable behaviour and what wasn’t. We continued to receive regular in-service training throughout our service after that, but as soon as the crash came, that aspect of training was one of the first casualties.

To the best of my knowledge, most of the guys in my class turned out fine. I met a few bad apples along the way during my 35 years, but the percentage was small, and I can’t imagine that forcing the current members to sign a code of ethics is going to improve the odds that much. The GRA has suggested that this is nothing but window dressing, and I suspect they’re right.

Drew Harris, the garda commissioner, has directed that those who decline to sign will be ineligible for promotion but issuing threats to members isn’t going to work either, particularly as many members would suggest that the promotion system itself is flawed.

There has always been a perception that favouritism and nepotism flourish within the organisation and this has long since been a serious bone of contention.

An editorial in the Garda Review advocated for an independent authority to separate policing from politics. Not to deny our elected political leaders the opportunity to debate and the right to legislate on policing, but so that they were not seen to exert undue influence on appointments and operational matters.

It called for a level playing field for all and a meritocracy based on individual competency and skills, rather than personal connection. Sadly, we have repeated our concerns that nepotism and ‘pull’ are alive and well, despite the buzzwords of ‘accountability’, ‘transparency’ and ‘independence’ that speckle every statement and paid lip service in every round of competition.

The editorial further stated that this culture is near impossible to pin down and provide evidence for but equally, it is hard to refute. We still believe that an open, independent transparent process to establish and appoint the most capable candidates would signal a departure from the perceived cronyism of the past in the promotion system

I remember when lists of those who were “successful in the competition for promotion” were published, there were always nods, winks and heavy sighs when certain names appeared. Many of the “successful candidates” could have been predicted in advance of any list, based on family or political connections.

Patrick Horan, an ex-garda turned solicitor, wrote in the Irish Examiner a couple of years ago that methods of promotion have sullied the honour of the force and suggested that it has always been a truism that progression within the force was dependent on two factors: Patronage and “team spirit”.

He maintained that everyone knew that when a job became vacant it wasn’t really vacant, for it was already destined for some favourite candidate somewhere, a candidate who had shown the requisite degree of slavish obedience and an unthinking determination to follow orders without question.

The dilemma then was to go through with the façade of the promotion process when the chosen ones were already known or not to bother with it and then be accused of not showing enough interest in advancement. The good old Catch 22.

Politics has always played a part in the promotion and movement of members of An Garda Siochana.  I remember back in the eighties, I was advised by an old hand, to be careful when dealing with politicians, or anyone connected to them, or I could find myself on Achill Island counting sheep.

I’m all in favour of providing instruction and training for all ranks regarding standards of behaviour, but simply signing a piece of paper won’t make a blind bit of difference.

Unfortunately, there will be no St. Patrick’s Day parade in Cobh this year. That was the message in the statement issued by the organisers last month. They thanked everyone for helping out in previous years but regrettably they said, mainly due to financial considerations, they had no alternative but to cancel this year’s event.

They cited several reasons for coming to this decision and I suspect that their issues are being experienced by organisers of similar events across the length and breath of the country. Mostly, it came down to lack of funding, but a lack of volunteers and a drop in the number of floats taking part were also factors.

The statement went on to explain that financial projections were showing a potential loss of €5000 this year. Very little fundraising has been done for the event and there was an increase of €1200 in the cost of crowd control barriers to be added to the €2200 that was lost in 2018.

The organisers have rightly pointed out that the effort and expense that goes into preparing an event like this is the same, regardless of the number of participants. Providing safe assembly areas, a fully barriered route, a reviewing stand, a PA system and MC, entertainment, bunting, official road closures, fundraising, extended public liability insurance, entry forms etc are all essential requirements whether it’s 10 floats or 100.

And why bother, when a lack of volunteers to assist with organising and stewarding, and the decline in the list of entries from previous years would seem to indicate a general lack of interest in either taking part in the parade or helping to arrange it?

Anybody who has ever been involved in a club or a charity will understand the position that the organisers of the St. Patricks Day Parade found themselves in. My first involvement in committee work came about in the early seventies when, as a young teenager, I found myself on the committee of a tennis club. When I tried, after the first year to get out of it, I suddenly discovered that I was the new secretary.

It proved a lot more difficult to get out of that position than it was getting into it. While there were plenty of people only too willing to point out what was going wrong with the club and quick to apportion blame, they abandoned ship whenever there was a call for new committee members. These were the same people who always had all the answers by the way.

Following the statement concerning the cancellation of the parade, there were many who voiced their opinion on social media. Some said it was a disgrace and blamed the Cork County Council for not providing funding. Some blamed the local business community for their lack of support and some even blamed the organising committee for not highlighting the issue earlier so the community could have had more time to come to their aid.

As far as I can recall, there were regular appeals for help over the years but it’s very convenient to forget that. Pointing the finger of blame somewhere else is something we have become very good at. It makes life easier when we can find a scapegoat and absolve ourselves of all responsibility. Show some indignance and then return to the paper and the cup of coffee. Job done.

But the reality is that if more of us got involved, the parade would be going ahead on March 17^th. OK, so there are other obstacles to be overcome too but while they can be tiresome and expensive, they are not insurmountable.

Our old friend, health and safety, throws up many obstacles and it is more complicated to arrange a public event now than it ever was. Yes, I know, health and safety regulations exist for our protection, but we’ve become slaves to it and the demands imposed by it are often enough to put some people off.

I understand the need for health and safety, but it seems to me that the demands imposed on the village fete are the same as those required for a major national event and when you include the cost of safety barriers, road closures, safety statements, public liability insurance and other associated costs, it can often become prohibitive for a small, local group.

Rural life is taking a battering and we’ve already seen the closure of many rural garda stations, post offices and pubs and when communities try to help themselves, they are met with a barrage of rules and regulations that make life more complicated.

A shortage of volunteers is another serious issue, and we have seen it become increasingly difficult to motivate people to give up some of their spare time. It’s the same old warriors who turn out for every occasion and that’s not sustainable.

For a few years, I was on a committee for ‘The Great Island 10 Mile Road Race’ that was held in Cobh annually. We required many stewards for this event, but we never had enough, so many of them would leap-frog to different locations once the race began. As soon as the runners passed them by, they moved to another area.

Every year it was the same people who turned up to lend a hand and when other events are organised in the town, it’s the same faces that can be seen wearing the hi viz vests. It’s probably a similar story everywhere, but these characters will eventually need to be replaced.

We shouldn’t expect the same people to put themselves forward for every cock fight when there are other able-bodied candidates available. Everyone has something to offer and each of us has a part to play.

Community spirit doesn’t just develop magically, it takes a bit of effort.

My mother-in-law is celebrating her birthday at the weekend and she’s having a party in a local hotel in Cobh. She has been organising it for the last few months and she’s invited around three hundred guests. She’s making a bid deal of it and so she should, because she will be 100 years old.

She’s no ordinary centenarian either. Her eyesight and hearing may not be as good as they once were, but her mind is as sharp as a razor. She has an opinion on everything, and she has no problem letting you know what she thinks, whether you like it or not.

Moyra Swords lives on her own in the family home and she won’t have it any other way. There is always someone staying with her at night and her home help comes a couple of times a day. Then the family take turns to call so that she is rarely left on her own. If she’s left unattended for too long, she has a tendency to get up to mischief.

Last year a stair lift was installed. She was having some mobility issues, and this made it easier for her to get up and down the stairs. She flatly refuses to have a bed brought downstairs. She was told not to use the lift on her own and to wait until someone was with her in case she fell out of it and came tumbling down on her head.

She didn’t know how to operate it anyway so there was no great problem, but of course she figured it out for herself. One day, one of her daughters left the house after giving Moyra her tea and was just getting into her car to go home when she realised she had forgotten something. She returned to the house only to find her mother half way up the stairs in the lift.

She was very sheepish, like a child who had just escaped from her cot or a deer caught in the headlights. She promised not to reoffend but just to be sure, the lift was disabled, and she has no idea how to get it going again. At least, that’s what she’s telling her family.

Now, she is planning her party and she knows exactly what she wants and when she gets involved in a project like this, she can be very demanding. She’s not blessed with patience and tends to be like a dog with a bone. As soon as her invitation cards were printed, she had her daughters pestered to get them sent out as far back as the start of January.

She wasn’t happy until she went to the hotel herself to check out the venue, even though she couldn’t see that much of it, but she wouldn’t rest until she vetted it personally. She had it all worked out in her head how the event was going to pan out, including her “entrance”. There’s a touch of a diva about her.

She’s providing a sit-down meal for everyone, but she lost the run of herself with the invites and now she’s starting to panic that there may not be enough seating for everyone.

Moyra is originally from Kilmore Quay in County Wexford and loves to go back there for visits and she’s planning to spend a week there in July to coincide with the local sea food festival. She has fantastic recall and can still remember stories from her childhood and the names of all the old neighbours and friends.

She’s well able to travel and has been to visit relatives in Australia several times in recent years. She also has some family in Scotland, and she was asking me recently how much a flight to Edinburgh would cost. She loves to travel.

Moyra lived in Liverpool as a teenager during the war and she has lots of stories from that difficult time including some close calls. One night in particular, the air raid sirens sounded but she didn’t have time to get to the shelter before the bombing started. She was sitting in her cousins’ house when she heard a loud whistling sound and she instinctively knew it was a bomb. She held her breath, closed her eyes and offered a prayer.

The bomb landed nearby, and the explosion blew in the doors and windows of her home and Moyra was thrown from the chair as the house filled with soot and dust. It was a terrifying experience and those air raids became almost a nightly occurrence. She’s had many experiences in her lifetime, both good and bad and I suspect she’s not finished yet.

She shares a birth day with some famous names and has outlived them all. People like the singer Nat King Cole, Desmond Doss, the war hero, Eva Peron, Sir Edmund Hillary, the mountain climber, Jon Pertwee the actor and Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian politician.

Life expectancy in 1919 was 53.5 years for men and 56 years for females but obviously, Moyra wasn’t prepared to accept those figures and chose to ignore them.

Also, in 1919, Michael Keogh, an Irishman who had joined the German army, stopped an angry mob of men from killing two right-wing political agents who were stirring up trouble among two hundred soldiers. They were being badly beaten and some knives were being drawn to finish them off when Keogh ordered his men to fire a few shots in the air to disperse the crowd and pulled the two men to safety.

In 1930 in Nuremburg, Keogh recognized one of the agents he had saved, and it was the infamous Adolf Hitler. So, if he hadn’t intervened, life would have been very different for millions of people.

And Moyra wouldn’t have been blown off her chair in Liverpool.