Month: April 2020

• 

My 62 years on this planet have taught me that relationships within families can often be complicated. Not everyone is living the dream. In the words of the Charlie Rich song, ‘No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.’

What might appear to be domestic bliss to a casual observer can sometimes be completely different. There is an advertising campaign underway currently and it encourages abuse victims to seek help. There is a good reason for that.

According to the United Nations, reports of domestic violence have surged globally in the wake of massive lockdowns imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19. So much so that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres has urged governments to include the protection of women in their response to the pandemic.

Thankfully, that’s an alien world to most of us but violence is a factor in many relationships and there are victims suffering in silence while working hard to hide the truth from family and friends. Creating cover stories for the black eye or the swollen lip.

It’s not always about physical violence either though, but it is always about control. It is sinister in whatever shape it comes.

We occasionally hear details of cases when they come before the courts and get an insight into the physical and mental torture that can be inflicted on victims. We heard recently about the first successful prosecution for coercive control in this country which resulted in the accused being sent to prison.

The culprit in that case pleaded guilty to bombarding his girlfriend with 5,757 phone calls over a three-month period. He admitted being abusive to his partner including exercising coercive control, harassment and making threats to damage property.

He became so obsessed with her that he forced her to take her phone everywhere with her, so he could keep track of her. He even called her on Facetime and made her scan her location, to prove she was exactly where she said she was.

On one occasion he entered the pub where she was socialising and pulled her out of the premises by the collar of her jumper and gave her a severe beating, including several punches to the head. He also burnt her clothes and broke her hair straighteners to prevent her from going out. He also threatened to kill her.

Cormac O’Keeffe gave an account of this case in The Irish Examiner, which was the first prosecution for this offence that came into law a year ago.

Coercive control is the way an abusive person gains and maintains power and control over another person by subjecting them to psychological, physical, sexual, emotional or financial abuse, regardless of gender or sexuality. It is a deeply dangerous and personal crime against the person usually committed over a prolonged period.

The court heard that the mother of three was fearful for her safety. In one phone call, the offender was heard screaming at his partner: “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you stone dead. I’ll cut your throat out. I’ll get you. Mark my words, I’ll get you tomorrow night.”

It’s a disturbing story but unfortunately, it’s not unusual in the world of domestic violence.

Twenty years ago, I was approached by a lady who was concerned about a family member. She told me her sister was living in fear of her husband and she was looking for some advice. I arranged for the lady concerned to meet me in the garda station and she told me her story which was quite shocking.

She had been living in a bad situation for years, but this was the first time she had spoken about it to somebody other than her family. She was desperate. This guy was very controlling, and she had absolutely no life of her own. He was a bully and was in complete control of her physically and mentally.

She was only allowed out of the house for brief periods to do some shopping and if she failed to return on time, she was punished. She had no friends of her own and only socialised when they were out together. Even then, she had to be careful who she spoke to because he could get jealous without any reason and that would cause problems for her later.

We spoke for a long time and the account of her circumstances was hard to digest. We met a second time in the station, and it was obvious that she was in a distressed state. She told me that her tormentor had followed her when he discovered she was going to the garda station.

He had parked his car across the road to intimidate his wife, so I went out and introduced myself. I advised him that I was aware of the situation and told him his wife would be seeking the protection of the court.

I also suggested that in the meantime, it would be in his interest not to interfere with her again as the judge would be informed of every incident. I also advised him, in layman’s language that he would clearly understand, to leave the area.

I accompanied her to the court while she got her Barring Order. It wasn’t contested because he failed to show up. That was no surprise because abusers are often weak individuals who don’t like being called out. I never saw him again.

She went on to have the life she deserved and was finally able to leave the house to meet family and friends without fearing the consequences.

I’m telling this story to illustrate that there is a way out. There is protection for victims once they find the courage to take the first step. This new piece of legislation adds extra protection and hopefully it will encourage others to come forward.

• 

Covid 19 has been doing a pretty good job of keeping most of us housebound and seated in front of the TV. I think I’ve watched more television in the last few weeks than I normally would over the course of a year.

I’ve noticed too that with all the channels available to us, there are times when I struggle to find something decent to watch. I did come across two shows though that I found interesting.

The first one was ‘The Guards: Inside the K’. It’s a behind the scenes look at what gardai face on a daily basis in the K District in Dublin which covers Blanchardstown, Finglas and Cabra. I wasn’t expecting much to be honest when I tuned in first, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s a very well-made documentary series. I’ve seen a few of the episodes so far and it gives a very accurate account on what life is like for gardai in the big smoke. It’s changed a lot from when I was stationed there in the early eighties. Even though I spent thirty-five years in that organisation, I was taken aback at some of the scenes.

It’s a tougher area to police now and certainly more violent than it was in my day. It surprised me too how young the members are but maybe that’s just me getting older. I’ve only been retired for the last five years but I know I wouldn’t be able for that job now. It’s a young person’s game so I’m happy to leave it to them while I observe from the comfort of my recliner.

The second programme that caught my eye was ‘Reared by the village’. In this show, they take troubled teenagers from an urban environment and introduce them to life in the countryside where community is at the heart of everything.

The episode I saw involved a teenager from Tallaght who was brought to a small farm in Laois. The 14 year-old normally lives in a two bedroomed apartment with his mother and his three younger siblings in an area blighted by drug dealing, anti-social behaviour and joyriding. Some of his friends are already involved with the gardai.

The two places are worlds apart, so he was understandably nervous about leaving his familiar territory. Before he left, he was asked by his buddy what he thought it was going to be like down in the country? He said he expected it to be full of pigs and muddy roads.

He was surprised to discover that it wasn’t like that at all and he was also surprised at the amount of freedom the local youngsters had and how they could, within reason, come and go as they pleased. That amount of leeway would be very risky for a youngster from Dublin’s inner city.

Allowing a young teenager to wander the streets in the heart of Dublin unsupervised would be a recipe for disaster. There are too many temptations. Lots of opportunities for kids to go down the wrong path and fall in with the wrong crowd. So, it’s very challenging for parents raising children in a large urban environment like that.

The programme follows the progress of these kids as they try to get back on track and improve the relationship they have with their parents. I’m not sure whether it works or not, but it certainly had an impact on this young fella because he ended up in tears when it was time to return home.

The thing that grabbed my attention though was his visit to the nearby garda station where he was brought to meet the local sergeant. They were chatting away, but you could see the young lad was holding back and he was slow to engage. He told the sergeant he would never talk to the guards in Dublin because they were the enemy. I thought that was very sad.

He’s not alone. Many children, especially in urban areas, develop an anti-police mentality at a young age without knowing why. There are reasons for this and the garda school’s programme was one tool developed to combat it. It set out a plan for regular, structured visits to the primary schools by trained gardai.

Engagement between young people and the gardai is crucial and the primary schools provide an ideal place to start. I know from experience that the programme works. I actively promoted it for many years in Cork and we saw the benefits of it until it fell victim to the cutbacks. That needs to be addressed.

The title of the programme ‘Reared by the village’ also reminded me of my own childhood. I often left the house early in the morning to meet my friends and didn’t come home again until it was time to eat. Sometimes I even forgot about food even though you wouldn’t believe that if you saw me now.

My parents didn’t worry about me either because I never strayed too far, and they always knew who I was with. They had a secret weapon too – the community. There were always plenty of eyes looking out for us. My father told me when I was very small that no matter where I went or what I did, there would always be somebody watching. He was right of course.

We were raised by the entire community who checked us if we stepped out of line and we never questioned that authority. If you forgot your manners, you would be quickly reminded by the shopkeeper, a neighbour, the postman or anyone else within earshot.

Times have changed. It would be a brave soul who would dare to correct an unruly child these days. No wonder the young lad on the programme was crying. He has seen where we’re headed.

• 

I had a dream that I was at a work meeting. It was a formal setting, like a board room with a large table and everybody was nicely dressed in suits and ties, except me. I was naked.

Nobody else in the room seemed to find this peculiar because they were taking no notice. I was OK with it for a while too and this was bothering me because maybe I was doing it regularly and I was just used to the idea. But then I started to panic.

I have had these episodes a few times where I’m with groups of people in very public situations but always naked.  I don’t understand that because it’s not something I like to do. I’m pretty certain I’ve never exposed myself to the public. I’ve definitely never been to a nudist beach and have no desire to ever visit one either.

I have the kind of body that’s best kept under wraps and no amount of money would ever encourage me to present it to anyone in its naked form. So why am I dreaming about sitting at a meeting without my pants?

One theory is that we all fear being embarrassed in front of people and from a young age we’re told that we should always cover up so as to not expose ourselves to others. So, dreaming about being naked means you’re worried about how people will think of you.

There’s another dream that pops up from time to time as well where I’m in danger and trying to call for help but I can’t make a sound.

I woke myself up a couple of times when I started shouting and that was a strange experience. In the dream, I was trying to warn a friend of some imminent danger. In my head, I was shouting loudly but in the real world there was nothing but silence.

I was getting frantic as my friend was about to fall off a cliff and I was shouting for all I was worth but couldn’t raise a squeak. Then suddenly it worked, and I roared which woke me and probably startled the neighbours.

According to Japanese legend, there is a spirit animal that comes into your house in the middle of the night and eats your nightmares to give you peace. It’s called a Baku. It looks like a pig with the head of a badger while according to others, it’s a cross between an elephant, a tiger and a rhinoceros.

There’s no reference to what sound it makes but I can tell you because I know. It’s a noisy guttural roar and I know that for a fact because I’ve heard it. Let me explain.

My wife tells me I snore occasionally. Usually after too much alcohol and I know when that happens because I’ll get an elbow in the kidneys and a feed of abuse. It’s annoying for the other person in the bed and I get that, but I have come across some characters that must make bedtime a real challenge for their other half.

Back in the noughties when we were running humanitarian aid convoys to Belarus and Western Russia, we often found ourselves bunking together in large groups. It could be in a large dormitory in an orphanage or on the floor of a day care centre.

You may only have met some of the guys in the sleeping bags beside you for the first time a week earlier so you wouldn’t be familiar with their nocturnal habits. That wouldn’t last long though.

We were in one of those orphanages one night, in the middle of nowhere. There was a large grassy area surrounding the building where all the trucks and ambulances parked. Truckers don’t like being too far away from their rigs when they’re not sleeping in them – they’d bring them inside with them if they could.

Anyway, we were after a long day and looking forward to a nights’ sleep. It was a large room with a high ceiling and lino on the floor and a rough and ready toilet down the hall that you could find by following your nose.

There were about fifteen beds in the room and most of us were asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. Until the noise started that is.

This guy began to snore. I’m calling it a snore just so you’ll know what I’m talking about, but it was reality something more. It began with a slight rumbling in the bowels of the earth and built up gradually until it was unleashed into the room and rattled the windows. It was horrendous.

Missiles were hurled in his general direction and some hit the target which brought about short periods of peace while he shifted position. He was resilient though and never took long to pick up where he left off.

It was so bad, we couldn’t figure out how he was able to sleep through it himself, not to mention the rest of us and it became apparent that we were in for a long and restless night. But then the truckers stepped up to the mark.

A bunch of them gathered around the bed and lifted the mattress with the offender attached and brought it outside. They placed him in the back of an ambulance and left him there. That wasn’t the end of it though because he could still be heard by the rest of us in the dormitory.  

Looking back at that episode now, I feel a bit guilty because I realise after all these years, that the poor guy was blamed in the wrong. He was completely innocent. That noise was too unnatural to be human and there’s only one explanation. It was the Baku.

Back in February, Storm Dennis lashed our coastline and shoved a ghost ship onto the rocks at Ballycotton. The MV Alta appeared out of the blue and found itself the centre of attention while grounded in East Cork.

I was in the area and decided to have a look at it. Afterall, it’s not every day you get to see a real ghost ship, so I parked the car and walked along the cliff top. Many others had obviously been just as curious because the pathway was wet and muddy from all the other feet.

I wasn’t expecting that, and it was a cold and windy morning as I battled my way along the path in my sensible shoes. I didn’t realise how far I had to go either. After walking for what seemed like an eternity, and shoes covered in mud, I decided to follow Homer Simpson’s advice; “If at first you don’t succeed, give up.”

I trundled back to the car park and then I noticed an old lifeboat sitting on blocks. A final resting place after a long working life dedicated to saving lives. The lifeboat, The Mary Stanford, was involved in a famous rescue operation in 1936, saving the lives of eight men on board The Daunt Rock Lightship.

The Daunt Rock sits off the Cork Coast, near Roberts Cove. It was deemed to be a marine hazard in 1864 after a ship crashed into it. The ship, ‘City of New York’ was wrecked and as a result, the first lightship was placed there to alert other mariners to the danger.

In February 1936, there was a massive storm which morphed into a hurricane and the lightship, ‘Comet’, broke its moorings and was drifting towards the rocks and certain disaster. Time and again, huge waves crashed over it and tossed it about like a cork in the water.

The crew thought they were destined to be lost at sea but in the early hours of the morning, after several attempts, they managed to get out another mooring line. But when that also broke, they were in serious trouble.

The wind increased to gale force and the crew of the lightship decided to leave their vessel. One of the crew tapped out an S.O.S. and that message got to the pilot master on duty in Cork Harbour just before the wheelhouse was damaged and the wireless was knocked out of commission.

Despite their situation, the crew of the lightship were conscious of the potential danger to other seamen, so they continued to carry out their duty. They fired flares at regular intervals as a reminder of the hidden dangers of Daunt’s Rock to oncoming ships approaching the entrance to Cork Harbour.

In the early hours, the Ballycotton Lifeboat was alerted that the Daunt’s Rock Lightship was drifting towards the rocks. The phone lines were down but a message was sent to the local policeman in Ballycotton and he alerted Patsy Sliney.

Patsy Sliney was the coxswain of the Ballycotton Lifeboat and he contacted the rest of the crew without setting off the alarm because he didn’t want to worry the rest of the families in the area at that hour of the night.

This account of the incident by Patsy Sliney is taken from the Irish Examiner Archives;

The Lifeboat, with its crew, comprising Messrs Patsy Sliney, coxswain, John Lane Walsh, second coxswain, Tom Sliney, permanent mechanic, Willie Sliney, second permanent mechanic, Tom Flavin Walsh, John Sliney and Michael Walsh, immediately set off.

The roughest seas were running, and it was a night of terror. When we got to the position where the lightship should be, we could not find it. Visibility was very poor, although we were within a half-mile of it at the time.

We got to the lightship and remained standing by for twenty-five hours until we went to Cove for food and petrol after our supplies ran out.

‘Tremendous seas were running at the time and with great difficulty the Ballycotton lifeboat was manoeuvred alongside the distressed vessel. The lifeboat was on the crest of a wave one miniute, the next moment sunk deep in the trough of another.’

The conditions were described as horrendous and some of the crew said they had never experienced anything like it before.

They managed to get a line on the stricken vessel to tow it to safety, but the line snapped. The large waves and wind kept pushing them apart. With the lightship heading for the rocks, they concentrated their efforts on getting the men off the ‘Comet’ instead. It took six attempts in all before all eight men were rescued.

The lifeboat crew had been on duty for close on seventy hours at that stage and had eaten little apart from biscuits.

The Cork Examiner reported; ‘The men were soaked to the skin and almost asleep as they walked ashore in Cove. Considering the heavy seas, the removal of the crew required the highest degree of seamanship and its performance reflects the highest credit not alone to the gallant crew from Ballycotton, but to the boats and men that have made the name, of the Ballycotton Lifeboat Institution a revered one to sailors who sail the seven seas.’

At a subsequent meeting of the Cork County Council, it was proposed that the Council extend its congratulations to the crew of the Ballycotton lifeboat on their bravery during the rescue of the crew of the Daunt’s Rock lightship.

Their feat was described as one of the most daring and courageous that had ever taken place and the Chief inspector of the Irish Lights described it as one of the most marvellous rescues that had been affected in his experience.

It was an amazing feat by a bunch of incredibly brave men.