Month: March 2023

I had hoped to be in Cyprus by now. Flights were arranged months ago, and I was looking forward to the trip but like the best laid plans of mice and men, the wheels came off. A trip of a different kind was on my flight path, and I ended up in Mater Hospital instead.

I’ve had a dodgy back for years and when I was leaving Cyprus to come home last November, I slipped on a wet floor in an elevator. I grabbed hold of the handrail to prevent a fall, but I knew straightaway that I had jarred something in my back and trouble wasn’t too far away. Sure enough, by the time I arrived home to Cobh, I was banjaxed.

My left leg was numb, so my GP sent me for an MRI and afterwards suggested that I should see Mr. Paul Kiely, an orthopaedic spine surgeon in the Mater Hospital. When I met him, I was hoping he would sprinkle some magic dust on the affected area and send me home to rest, but he had other plans.

After reading the MRI and x-rays, he told me I needed a couple of rods in my back to stabilise my spine. Wasn’t expecting that.

From the word go and I knew Mr. Kiely was the right man for the job. His confidence was infectious. Following the surgery, the wound stubbornly refused to dry up, so I got to see a lot more of him over my three weeks stay than was originally envisaged. He was extremely professional, thorough and caring.

Prior to being admitted to hospital, I had to attend the Mater for a pre-surgery assessment and one of the first things they required was a blood sample. For this procedure I was introduced to a phlebotomist. I’ve had blood drawn from me many times over the years, but this was the first time I had heard this term. One of the other nurses told me she is also referred to as the vampire, but I hoped she was joking.

Phlebotomy isn’t a new term though. According to History.com for thousands of years, medical practitioners clung to the belief that sickness was merely the result of a little “bad blood.” Bloodletting or phlebotomy, probably began with the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians, but it didn’t become common practice until the time of classical Greece and Rome.

Patients with a fever or other ailment were often diagnosed with an overabundance of blood. To restore bodily harmony, their doctor would simply cut open a vein and drain some of their vital fluids into a receptacle. In some cases, leeches were even used to suck the blood directly from the skin.

While it could easily result in accidental death from blood loss, phlebotomy endured as a common medical practice well into the 19th century. Medieval doctors prescribed blood draining as a treatment for everything from a sore throat to the plague, and some barbers listed it as a service along with haircuts and shaves.

The practice finally went out of fashion after new research showed that it might be doing more harm than good, but leeching and controlled bloodletting are still used today as treatments for certain rare illnesses. Luckily my phlebotomist was up to date with modern practices and didn’t resort to leeches or cut a vein. She just used a needle.

The ancient Egyptian physicians had their own peculiar remedies. They often used lizard blood, dead mice, mud and mouldy bread as topical ointments and dressings, and women were sometimes dosed with horse saliva as a cure for an impaired libido.

They also used human and animal excrement as a cure-all remedy for diseases and injuries. Donkey, dog, gazelle and fly dung were all celebrated for their healing properties and their ability to ward off bad spirits.

Thankfully, Paul Kiely and his staff are a lot more sophisticated and there wasn’t an animal to be seen. The nursing staff, the catering staff, the physiotherapists and the cleaning staff were amazing, and we even managed to have some fun along the way.

My stay gave me the opportunity to see how a busy hospital functions on a daily basis and it was an eyeopener. It takes a large team of highly trained, dedicated professionals, working in unison in a sterile, often stressful, environment while maintaining a calm, pleasant demeanour.

That’s not always easy as I know from my own experience of working with the public. It can be trying at times but the abuse they have to put up with is totally unacceptable.

The Echo had a report on nurses being assaulted in our hospitals every day. Thousands of assaults on nurses, most of whom are female, occurred between January 2021, and October 2022, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO). And that’s only the assaults that were actually reported.

INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said over 9,000 assaults occurred during that period, almost double the figure recorded by the HSE. They included being shouted at, spat at, having things thrown at them and even being threatened with stabbing.

Assaulting nurses is so mind numbingly stupid that anyone found guilty of an offence of that nature should be automatically jailed.

According to the Irish Examiner, Judge Olann Kelleher agrees with me. He said, “People acting the maggot with hospital staff should go to prison.” He was addressing a defendant in court who was highly intoxicated and became violent towards hospital staff at the Mercy University Hospital.

He pleaded guilty to the charges and Judge told him, “I know one person who is out of work for nine months from A&E because of people like you.” Instead of sending him to prison though, he issued him with a fine. The mind boggles.

Apparently, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is in favour of a proposal to introduce the teaching of transgender issues to primary school children. He said the purpose of education is to prepare children for life and to teach them about the world.

Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman also believes transgender education should be part of the primary cycle to promote a greater understanding of the diversity in modern Irish society.

In their opinion trans people have always existed so it makes sense for schools to just inform children about the world around them and they should be taught what it means to be transgender. They are supported by BeLonG To, an organisation representing LGBT young people.

I must admit I had never heard of BeLonG to until I read a piece by Eoin English in the Irish Examiner. He wrote that the chief executive of that organisation, Moninne Griffith, said children as young as six and seven can know that they are LGBT, and educating children about trans issues could help trans children “feel safe and included in their school”.

“We know from research that 12 is the most common age for a young person to know they are LGBT, but I know from talking to teachers and parents all over the country that there are young people, as young as six and seven, who know they are LGBT,” she said.

Hang on there now for a second while I catch my breath, I’m starting to get palpitations. I’m not normally argumentative and I don’t consider myself to be a militant person. I don’t join demonstrations or protest marches, but that might be about to change.

I am completely against the notion of introducing transgender issues to primary school kids. I feel so strongly about this that I am prepared to leave my recliner and go stand at the school gates with a placard on my shoulder.

I have raised two children and I have three grandchildren, so I have some experience of dealing with kids. Anyone who has had dealt with smallies knows that at primary school age they are innocent. They believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and that’s OK. That’s how it should be.

They love bedtime stories, hugs and cuddles, their toys, their warm beds comfort blankets and their teddies. How are they supposed to get their heads around transgender speak when it is such a complicated topic. Many of us adults struggle with it never mind the kids.

I’m not the only one who thinks this is a daft idea. There has been considerable backlash from the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association (CPSMA). They believe a more prudent and sensible policy is to teach children to respect every human being and to allow children to be children.

Many parents and teachers have also spoken out and taken to social media to voice their concerns and I’m glad about that. I’m happy it’s not just me. Having just hit the age of 65 recently, I was afraid that maybe it was only the older generation like me who had difficulty with trying to cope with the pace of change, but it seems not.

I have discussed this with many of my friends too and as far as I can see most of us are struggling, particularly when it comes to the new non-binary language and the use of pronouns.

For example, I came across this on the Internet recently, “Fae/faer pronouns are neopronouns first invented by a demi-girl for demi-girls to use. fae/faer pronouns are sometimes called offensive, though these pronouns are not intended to be offensive, and if you don’t feel comfortable using them for cultural reasons, just ask the person if fae would be okay with you using they/them for faer. Never ask anyone to change their personal pronouns for your benefit.”

I couldn’t make head nor tail of this so to get a better understanding, I looked for some expert guidance. I turned to Health, a publication that was founded in 1981 to provide health and wellness information. It reaches over 120 million people annually with accurate, empathetic, and actionable health information so it seemed like an appropriate source.

They say, for the most part, people typically fall into two categories: male or female and that idea is known as a gender binary. But not everyone fits so perfectly into the man-or-woman categories and that’s where the term “non-binary” comes into play.

The Human Rights Campaign defined non-binary as “an adjective describing a person who does not identify exclusively as a man or a woman.” The campaign additionally said that while some non-binary people also identify as transgender, not all non-binary people identify that way.

While non-binary is a specific gender identity, it’s also often used as an umbrella term for others who don’t identify with being a man, a woman, or another gender. Most people who are non-binary prefer the pronoun “they,” but it never hurts to ask someone how they wish to be identified because there are a number of pronouns that can be used:

She, her, hers, and herself

He, him, his, and himself

They, them, their, theirs, and themself

Ze/zie, hir, hir, hirs, and hirself

Xe, xem, xyr, xyrs, and xemself

Ve, ver, vis, vis, and verself

Now, honestly speaking, I would never set out to be intentionally disrespectful to anyone, so apologies in advance if I should ever use the incorrect pronoun, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen because I can’t get the hang of this language. You’ll just have to make allowances for the fact that I’m old and can’t keep up.

But rest assured, if there is any attempt to introduce this subject matter to my grandchildren in primary school, you’ll find me on the picket line.

Many of us have had our flights disrupted over the years for various reasons. Volcanic ash clouds, the pandemic, a shortage of ground crew in airports and the occasional strike here and there. Things happen that we can’t always control. We accept that and just get on with things and put it down to bad luck. But now we’re facing further disruption and there’s nothing unfortunate about it. It’s deliberate.

There is a new craze emerging, that of flying drones near international airports which is causing chaos. Apart from the disruption and expense it causes, it’s also highly dangerous. There is a genuine risk to life, and I can’t for the life of me understand why there is so much faffing around trying to find a solution.

Bring the damn things down and figure out the legislation later. Lives are at stake here.

I was out in my back garden one day when I heard a distinctive buzzing sound overhead. When I looked up, I saw a drone hovering above me. It hung there for a short while before moving off. I have no idea what it was doing but if I had some method of bringing it crashing to Earth I would happily have done so. It was intrusive.

These things can be annoying, but they also have a more sinister side to them. Flight operations had to be temporarily suspended at Dublin Airport recently and three flights had to be diverted to Belfast and Shannon after a drone was seen flying near the airfield.

It’s not the first time. It is the sixth time since early January that flights have been suspended at that airport due to drone activity. The Irish Airline Pilots’ Association president Captain Evan Cullen told RTE that his organisation raised major concerns about drones with all the relevant stakeholders as far back as 2017, only to receive a “very poor response.”

Captain Cullen warned the DAA, the Irish Aviation Authority, and the Government of the “real-life risk” drones pose to passengers and crew on board flights. “A drone can take out a jet engine in a matter of seconds,” he said. “It can also penetrate the windscreen of a cockpit and therefore kill the pilots while in flight. They pose a real threat. They are not toys.”

So, what are they? They are described as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, which are aircraft that can be controlled remotely by a pilot, or by pre-programmed plans or automation systems that enable them to fly autonomously. A large number of industries and organizations are adopting this technology, including military, government, commercial, and recreational users.

The manufacture and sale of drones is a multi-billion-dollar industry. The number of them in existence varies from source to source but one website claimed the total number of consumer drone shipments worldwide was around 5 million units in 2020. That number is expected to increase over the next decade, reaching 9.6 million shipments globally by 2030.

With so many of these things about, and growing in popularity, there should be some regulations in place to control their use. It doesn’t make sense that anyone can buy a drone and set it off over an airfield to cause mayhem. So, what are the rules and who enforces them?

Well apparently, drones are not allowed to fly within 5 kilometres of an airport or within 30 meters of people, crowds, vehicles, or buildings and cannot be flown over national monuments. Direct visual contact by the operator with the drone is required, and the operating distance should not exceed 500 meters. Operators should avoid flying too close to residential areas or populated areas. 

I have no idea whether these restrictions are adhered to but there seems to be some uncertainty about who is responsible for enforcing them. There are obviously responsible drone users out there who use their machines for legitimate purposes but who will bring the rogue operators into line?

Well, the good news is that Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan is on the case. He told Brian O’Donovan of RTE that the Government is looking at ways to police and take down drones that are causing disruption. He also said he met DAA and other regulatory authorities and that they are committed to doing everything they can to stop, what he described, as a real risk.

“This is a real danger, this is a real crime,” Mr Ryan said. “The justice system will be carrying out further investigations and we are working with justice department looking at other mechanisms where we can police and take down drones, but it’s not an easy issue to address.”

“We’ve seen this at airports right across Europe but absolutely it’s at centre stage of all of the Government’s efforts, particularly from the justice and defence side because this is a criminal act.” Mr Ryan said that due to safety rules at airports you cannot just shoot things down.

Authorities are reluctant to use that method because the resulting debris could cause further problems. Not as many problems though, I would imagine, as a downed plane full of passengers and luggage might cause.

There are other ways to bring a drone down. Plucking it out of the sky using prey birds is an option. Eagles were trained at one stage to attack drones. They wore shin-guards to protect their legs from drone rotors, but they didn’t always respond to orders and animal rights activists had an issue with using them.

Jamming the signal is another possibility or disabling them with nets fired from handheld canons or dropped from another drone. Other airports are ahead of the game and have systems in place already. Minister Ryan is playing catch-up and needs to get his act together quickly before there is a fatality.

The Lord Mayor of Cork said recently that there are some streets she wouldn’t walk down in Cork city alone. Cllr Deirdre Forde said it’s a “sad reflection” on the city that people don’t feel safe, and she called for more gardai to be on patrol.

There have been calls for more gardai on the streets of Dublin too following the well-publicised assaults on members of the Force. Residents, businesspeople and visitors have also complained about feeling unsafe on the streets of the capital.

Leaders of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI), have echoed the call for extra resources but admit that not only are they failing to attract new candidates, they are also struggling to hold on to the members they have.

The large number of resignations it is experiencing is leaving a significant hole in the organisation. Figures, released by Garda headquarters to various sources show an increase in the number of resignations from around 41 in 2017 to 94 in 2021 and 109 in 2022.

They are now talking about introducing exit interviews to try and work out why so many are leaving before their time, something that was unheard of in my day.

Changes to pension, pay and conditions are being cited as the main cause. Recent controversaries haven’t helped either and have contributed to the poor morale being experienced throughout the Force. Excessive oversight also seems to be a factor.

Brendan O’Connor, President of the GRA said the failing recruitment drive was impacting policing. “The failure to meet recruitment targets, coupled with significant numbers of resignations has the potential to further impact on the effectiveness of the policing service, that the public can expect to rely on.”

Some have cited the increased animosity towards gardai as being one obstacle to recruitment and retention while others have suggested that management and oversight within the organisation is also causing problems. Retired Garda Inspector Tony Gallagher told the Journal.ie recently that he believes gardaí are choosing to leave the career rather than deal with the difficult internal environment.   

“To start with, the probationer training system is too academic, there needs to be a greater emphasis for on-the-job training.”

Gallagher also believes that the multiple bodies set up to oversee the gardaí, such as the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, the Policing Authority and the Policing Inspectorate are making the work of gardaí more difficult.   

“The garda organisation is now haemorrhaging personnel, with young members deciding to leave. There is absolutely no doubt that the training system and stifling oversight by numerous bodies is a factor,” he added.

So, here’s the problem. Morale is low, there’s a gulf between the gardai and the public, violence against gardai is on the increase and there is a lack of garda presence on the streets. The blame for the current situation can’t be laid entirely at the feet of the current garda commissioner, but it is happening on his watch.

I don’t know Drew Harris. I’ve never met the man, but I’m told has the reputation for being a strong disciplinarian and is seen by many as aloof and distant. Someone who wants things done his way and his way only.

He is obviously a very qualified police officer but most of that experience was gained as a member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (P.S.N.I.), a different organisation entirely to An Garda Siochana.

He has brought some of his former colleagues with him to the Phoenix Park and their combined policing experience is bound to influence how An Garda Siochana functions. But unlike the P.S.N.I., An Garda Siochana is a community-based organisation and the relationship between the community and the police in this jurisdiction has always been what set us apart. Maybe it’s time to examine what we had and seek a compromise.

In 1979, I arrived with eighty-nine other guys in the Garda Training Centre in Templemore and during our six-month training period we learned the basics of policing. How to investigate a traffic accident, how to deal with a shoplifter, how to make an arrest, how to serve a summons and execute a warrant. We also learned how to give evidence in court and generally how to represent the organisation in the real world beyond the confines of the training centre. 

The rest, we were told, we would learn from our colleagues when we reached our allocated stations. The practical experience we would gain from being thrown in at the deep end and from dealing with real life issues could not be learned in a training environment, so our mentors wished us well and sent us on our way.

When we arrived at our new stations, we were ready to deal with most of whatever presented itself and sought guidance from the older guys for everything else. We took our orders from the sergeant and spent our early years learning the ropes while performing foot patrols or ‘walking the beat.’ This was how we familiarised ourselves with the locality.

It also taught us about camaraderie because we had to look out for one another. It allowed us to engage with the locals and develop relationships which was, and should still be, a very important aspect of policing.

Local knowledge is a major weapon in a policeman’s armoury and to get that you need to be out and about, meeting the locals, engaging with young people and being involved in community life but that strategy seems to have been discarded.

An Garda Siochana is more effective, and more appealing to potential applicants, when gardai are seen to be part and parcel of the local community. That relationship is essential but it’s impossible to develop when you’re under resourced, stifled by oversight and controlled by a computer system.

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.