Trevor Laffan

Back in December 2017, my mother died, and the family home became empty. In truth, it had become empty before that in some ways because when she got sick, she came to live with me and never went home again.

Even when she was living there, a large piece of life went out of her when my sister died of cancer in her mid-forties in 2005. The house was never the same after that which is understandable. It’s not the natural order for children to predecease their parents and my mother never really got over it.

She would always find a way to bring Jillian’s name into the conversation whenever she was talking to anyone. I suppose it was her way of trying to keep her memory alive.

After my father died in 2010, she struggled to motivate herself and, in many ways, I think she was merely existing. She threw in the towel. She wasn’t a religious person, but she was hoping that she would get to see her daughter again someday.

Looking back on it, we now know that she wasn’t fully fit for a long time. She neglected her health and chose to ignore some of the symptoms she was experiencing. She kept it to herself and it was only after an accident at home that the full extent of her ill health was discovered.

She got up in the early hours of the morning to go to the bathroom and fell down the stairs. She managed to get her mobile phone and she called me but when I got to her, she was shaken and had lost a lot of blood. The ambulance took her to hospital at 6am and, although she didn’t know it then, she would never return to live in that house again.

When she arrived in the hospital, it didn’t take the medical staff long to determine that she was seriously ill and didn’t have much time left. She came to live with me in October and died on the 3^rd of December 2017. It was quick, and as far as we could tell, painless, and she was comfortable right up to the end.

It took the rest of us in the family, a year to finally get around to clearing out the house and there were a few surprises in store for us when we did. My father was an avid amateur photographer for as long as I can remember, and he was rarely without a camera in his hand.

In the pre-digital age, he developed his own photographs and slides and there were thousands of them in drawers and boxes all over the house. When I was a young lad, the kitchen was often designated as a ‘dark room’ where he developed his rolls of film.

It’s great for us now that he did that, because we have plenty of material but it’s going to take some time to go through it all. Looking through some of the old black and white photographs gives a real sense of how much we have all changed over the years and brings back many memories.

I came across a photo of me sitting on the roof of a three-storey house when I was about eight years of age. My father was a small-time builder and his sidekick was a guy by the name of George Doherty. The photograph shows me sitting on the roof with George while we were taking a break from removing slates. I look very relaxed and the height of the roof obviously didn’t bother me.

My mother had written on the back of the photo that I loved to work with the lads during the school holidays and I loved to put on my overalls to be like them. She didn’t date it, but I reckon it must have been taken in 1966. There were similar photographs that were taken on other jobs, so I obviously spent a lot of time hanging out with them as a child.

There was another photo of me on a different roof with George when I was about three years old, but I presume I was just put there for the purpose of the shot. I worked with them when I was older too and I was always comfortable on roof tops because I spent so much time up there. I was at home on heights.

If those photos were taken in the modern era, the PC brigade would certainly launch a full-scale attack on my irresponsible parents, and I would probably be removed from the family home and placed in care.

There was another photo of an old Bedford van. Because my father was a builder, he always had some form of transport at a time when there were few cars on the road. The two front doors slid back from front to rear and when you pushed them back fully, they would remain in the open position. I remember in the summer time being in the van with the doors open wide and no seat belt of course then either.

On one occasion, I must have been very young, I was in the front of the van with George and I was sitting on his lap and the doors were open. I was holding on to the door frame with my left hand. My father hit the brakes for some reason and the doors slid forward to slam shut.

George reacted very quickly and threw his large paw over my small hand and he took the force of the door as it slammed shut. Only for him, I imagine my young bones would have been crushed.

This is only the tip of the iceberg and I imagine there are lots more memories to be discovered yet. 

I’m in a quandary and I need some advice. It seems, because of my advancing years, I am no longer allowed to wear what I like. According to some commentators, the time has come for me to conform to an age appropriate dress code which means there are some things I can’t wear.

My problem is that I have no idea if there are any ‘age appropriate’ clothes in my wardrobe because I don’t know what they look like. Since hearing about all of this, I’ve been thinking of refusing to leave the house in case people are laughing at me.

I could order my groceries online and have them delivered to my front door and leave them there until it gets dark. I could stay in my pyjamas all day, with the blinds pulled down and if anyone asks me to go anywhere, I could pretend to be sick.

I blame An Garda Siochana for my predicament because for 35 years of my working life, I wore a uniform every day. I had a large supply of blue trousers and blue shirts so picking an outfit for work was easy. My life was very straight forward up to that point but then I retired, and it all went to pot.

I was never warned about the fashion police. There should have been some pre-retirement training provided to prepare me for dressing myself in civilian life. I should have been told that there was another colour besides blue and that there are people who pounce on fashion mistakes. I have been let down and I intend writing a strongly worded letter to the Department of Justice.

Fashion has always been a complete mystery to me. I have no idea how I survived until now with zero knowledge of the rag trade or colour coordination but like I said, it hasn’t been all my fault.

I was abused one time because I wore a green shirt and a blue pants. I thought I looked fine, but it was quickly pointed out to me that blue and green should never be seen. I had committed a serious fashion faux pas. I battled hard to recover from that embarrassment and just when I thought I was getting the hang of it, another fashion guru wants to change the rules.

You probably have never heard of a lady by the name of Alexandra Shulman. I certainly hadn’t and I had no idea she even existed until recently when she grabbed the headlines after criticising what Helena Christensen wore on a night out.

Now that is someone I had heard of. She was a supermodel in her day and not that long ago either. She is fifty years old now and is still a fine-looking woman, but she upset Ms. Shulman.

Shulman is a columnist and a former editor of Vogue, the fashion magazine, so you would expect her to know a thing or two about the fashion world. She wrote a piece, suggesting the outfit Christensen wore on a night out with friends, was inappropriate for her age.

“There’s nothing wrong in wishing to be desirable,” Shulman said, “it’s just not best achieved wearing a black lace corset in public. You don’t have to condemn yourself to trench coats, navy blazers and a crisp white shirt once you hit the big Five-O. But, even so, surely you should call time on Ann Summers style.”

That’s a bit harsh as far as I’m concerned because Helena could wear my granny’s bloomers and she would still look fantastic. Why Ms. Shulman felt the need to be so pass- remarkable is beyond me.

She would have plenty to say about my wardrobe. I’m pretty sure that some of my clothes would have been considered trendy at some point in their lives, just not in the recent past. In fact, it’s possible that they might have been in and out of fashion a few times over the years but anyway, from now on, I am taking a leaf out of Helena’s book and I’ll wear what’s comfortable.

My wife has often accused me of being odd and she reckons I’m not like other people. She’s probably right but I’m taking that as a compliment, whether intended or not, because it means I don’t follow the sheep. I do my own thing and I’m not going to wait for the likes of Ms. Shulman to tell me what to wear or what is appropriate for my age.

I refuse to subject myself to the whim of some eccentric fashion designer who expects me to pay a fortune for something I wouldn’t use as a dust sheet.

Take torn jeans for instance. Who would have thought, a few years ago, that people would be prepared to spend their hard-earned cash on trousers that are deliberately ripped to allow the knees to stick out? That factories would produce perfectly good jeans only to deliberately mangle them by tearing them to pieces to expose various bit of flesh.

According to author, Liz Hodgkinson, jeans and shorts should be made illegal for men over 60. “You may find this hard to believe but even in midwinter, I see old men in shorts, even at the theatre. Surely, it’s time for all older men to smarten themselves up?”

If you do away with shorts and jeans for men over sixty, that will leave me with very few options, and I don’t fancy going naked. So, I have decided to be brave and leave the house. Now that the weather is picking up, I’m getting into my shorts and t-shirts and I’ll stay in them for as long as the weather permits. After that, it’s back to the jeans and if that bothers Liz Hodgkinson, well, that’s just too bad.

The Garda Representative Association has asked the Garda Commissioner to bring some clarity to the issue of restraining prisoners and wants clear protocols on the use of handcuffs for its members when performing arrests. Cases have been struck out in court because of issues relating to the use of handcuffs.

Those of you who grew up watching American cop shows will probably be confused by this. You will have seen suspects being routinely handcuffed and placed in the patrol car before ‘Danno’ took them off to be booked. Not so in this jurisdiction.

The use of handcuffs here is more restricted and a garda restraining a suspect must be able to justify the use of handcuffs in any subsequent court case. It is seen as a use of force and as such it has to be proportionate, so the garda can find himself in bother for using them. If you think that’s daft, don’t despair, you’re not alone.

There was a story in the Limerick Leader about a case in the district court where drink driving charges brought against a motorist, who was more than four times over the legal limit, were dismissed after a judge ruled the use of handcuffs by gardai was unacceptable.

The driver was prosecuted in relation to an incident in Limerick at around 2.15am and a garda told Limerick District Court that he observed a vehicle being driven in a car park and “rolling back” after the driver, a Polish national, attempted to park in a space.

He placed handcuffs on the defendant following his arrest and the prisoner was taken to Henry Street garda station where he later found to be four times over the legal limit of 50mg.

Being questioned about his decision to use handcuffs, the garda said that he had carried out a “quick risk assessment” before doing so. The defendant was highly intoxicated, I was unaware of his strengths and weaknesses,” he said. ”I had never met him before, he might have had a propensity for violence, I took precautions,” he added.

When the solicitor put it to the witness that the criteria outlined “could have applied to everyone”, the garda accepted he would not have handcuffed a grandmother. The garda agreed he was accompanied by a colleague on the night and that the driver was not aggressive and the solicitor submitted the use of handcuffs had been unnecessary and unlawful and there was “absolutely no reason to make a decision to place cuffs” on his client on the night.

Dismissing the case, Judge John King said it appeared from the garda’s evidence that he would decide to place handcuffs on healthy males “as a matter of routine” and not on a case-by-case basis.

“It appears he has decided if you are a male and healthy, then I am going to apply cuffs,” he said. On that basis, the judge said he was satisfied the arrest was unlawful and dismissed the charge.

It’s very easy for someone sitting in the safety of a courthouse to reach a determination that placing handcuffs on a prisoner is unnecessary. It’s a different kettle of fish when arresting a person in a public car park in the early hours of the morning.

An Garda Siochana is an unarmed organisation. The protection afforded to gardai today is pretty much the same as it was for me back in 1980, a soft cap, a baton and a pair of handcuffs. The batons we had were short timber sticks made of hickory but at least the modern version is extendable and made of stronger material. But they are still the basic tools.

I could count on one hand the number of times I used handcuffs back in the day. I rarely carried them with me because they were attached to your belt and were uncomfortable when sitting in a car. But times were different then.

Society has changed since those uncomplicated times and there is more violence on the streets today. There is a lot less respect for police officers too and they are faced with more aggression.  Guns and knives are commonly used, and it’s difficult to determine how someone is going to behave when under the influence of narcotics.

Many years ago, myself and a colleague responded to a call regarding a disturbance on McCurtain Street. When we got there, we found two guys fighting. We had a job separating them and we decided to arrest both.

One of them calmed down but the other guy was hyped up and aggressive, so we handcuffed him and placed him behind the front passenger seat. My colleague sat in the middle while the calm guy sat behind me. As I was driving down the Lower Road, he suddenly lurched forward and punched me into the side of the head and started kicking the back of the seat.

I stopped the car and struggled to get the handcuffs on him. I decided there and then that in future, any person in custody in a car that I was driving, would be placed in handcuffs.

Once a person has been placed in custody, the personal safety of that prisoner becomes the responsibility of the arresting member. He has no idea how the prisoner will react to being detained but he must ensure that he doesn’t cause injury to himself or others. He must also ensure the prisoner doesn’t abscond because that could let the garda open to disciplinary proceedings or worse.

So, while police officers affecting arrests can’t use their handcuffs, politicians standing in a field for a photo opportunity, are required to wear hard hats, eye protectors and high viz vests before turning a sod.

Seems to me, the threat of being mauled by hungry worms is a greater concern for our legislators.

Back in May 1980, myself and Pat Lehane travelled by mini bus to Dublin and we were dropped off outside Blackrock Garda Station. We had just completed our six months training in the Garda Training Centre in Templemore, and this was our first posting in the real world.

I’m from Cobh and Pat is from Macroom so we hardly qualified as city slickers. As far as we were concerned, we may as well have landed in the Bronx. The comfort blanket of Templemore was behind us now and this was the real thing.

Templemore has a fancy title now. It’s called Garda Siochana College and it bestows degrees in policing studies on students, but back then, we were just ordinary recruits. We got six months training, a feed of abuse and then we were thrown out to make our own way in the world.

Our first task after reporting in, was to find somewhere to stay. Fortunately for us, another Cork guy who was stationed in nearby Cabinteely, came to meet us off the bus. He had left Templemore two months previously and he gave us a hand to find accommodation. Only for him we could well have ended up sleeping in a bus shelter. That Good Samaritan was Charlie Barry, the recently retired Superintendent in Togher.

Pat and myself stayed in the same digs for the first couple of weeks and it wasn’t a great experience. One morning I woke up to find a chunk of the ceiling lying next to my pillow and I soon learned that it wasn’t unusual for bits to fall onto the bed during the night.

The first morning I went for breakfast, the landlady met me in the kitchen. She had a sliced pan under her arm and she asked me if I wanted toast. When I told her I did, she asked me if I wanted one slice or two. I was beginning to think that our relationship was doomed from the outset. I was right, and it wasn’t long before I was on the move.

I abandoned Pat, which he still hasn’t forgotten, and found another place to stay in Carysfort Avenue. This was close to the garda station and it turned out to be my home for the next three years. The house was run by a couple in their seventies and I suspect that they were taking in lodgers for the company more than the money. They were letting out three rooms on the first floor with two people to each room.

It was an old three storey house with a basement, where the kitchen and dining room were. You had to go through one bedroom to get to the other two and with some of us on shift work, there was always a bit of noise with all the coming and going.

There was a student there who hated noise and I shared a room with him. He had such sensitive hearing that he used to hide his tiny folding travel clock underneath his bed and cover it with some clothing so he couldn’t hear it ticking. My clock was a bit bigger than his and sometimes when I came home, I would have to search for it. He often buried it because it kept him awake.

Not long after I arrived, one of the other guys left, so Pat moved in. The following year, we were joined by Pats brother, John who was stationed in Irishtown.

Looking back on it, the conditions were fairly primitive, but it was nearly 40 years ago, and we didn’t know any better.

The hallway leading to the bathroom was covered with lino and there was a skylight with a broken piece of glass that often let in a bit of snow in the winter time. It could be cold there too because we didn’t have any heating.

We shared that one bathroom between six of us and there was one guy who was very fond of grooming himself. Because he was there the longest, he thought the hot water was for his personal use. There was a limited supply and if we didn’t get to the bathroom before him, we’d have to make do with cold water. This happened regularly.

There was a very large antique mirror in my bedroom, and he loved to use that when he was pruning himself and it didn’t bother him that he might be disturbing anyone else. I was often tempted to break it.

As far as I can remember it was costing us about sixteen pounds a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner and the food was good. When we were on nights, the landlady would make us a sandwich to take to work. We were completely spoiled, and she really looked after us.

Molly Trait was her name and she was a tough, capable woman and she provided a home from home for many characters over the years. She was married to Jack, a big man who was very set in his ways. He had worked as a labourer for most of his life and once he developed an opinion on something, that was that. There was no changing him.

They were living in Dublin for donkey’s years, but they were originally from Kilkenny and were really country people at heart. They were very traditional and everything came to a halt when the Angelus came on the TV at six o’clock. Both were a little hard of hearing and that often led to some confusion too, but it was a nice place to live.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then and some of the characters are no longer with us. Hard to believe it’s over 40 years since we got off that bus.

Back in 2014, I was working in Cyprus with the United Nations. Twelve members of An Garda Siochana make this trip every year as part of the Irish commitment to the peace keeping effort in that part of the world and I was lucky enough to be one of those that year.

In 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus and there was a bloody conflict. The United Nations were sent in to create a barrier between the two sides and maintain the peace. That barrier still exists today, and it’s known as the Buffer Zone.

Without going into too much detail and boring you to death, the Buffer Zone is basically a strip of no-mans-land that runs from the east to the west of the country to separate the Greek Cypriots in the south from the Turkish Cypriots in the north. It’s mostly dusty, desert type terrain and while some farming does go on there, access to that whole area is very much restricted.

Part of my role was to act as a liaison person between the UN military component and the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot authorities such as the police and the local councils or municipalities. Anyone wishing to carry out any business within the Buffer Zone must have permission or permits from the UN so there was regular interaction between us all.

It was in this capacity that I came to meet a man by the name of Tassos Hadjilefteris in Dherynia which is situated near the Buffer Zone. He was the equivalent of the town manager and he looked after the affairs of the municipality or council.

We met regularly and it was during one of these meetings that Tassos introduced me to a lady with a new born baby who wanted the baby baptised in a small little chapel in the Buffer Zone. The chapel is called Agia Marina and this lady’s grandmother and her mother were both baptised there, and she wanted her little girl to follow suit.

When I say it’s a small chapel, I mean small. It dates back to the 12th century and it’s dedicated to Saint Marina who is thought to be the guardian of children. Twenty people would fill it but it’s a lovely little place in the middle of nowhere.

In the basement of the chapel there is a Holy Water Spring which was once used by mothers of sick children to cure them and outside, next to the church, there is a small tree with lots of pieces of baby clothes attached to the branches. If someone has a sick child, they sneak in there and tie an item of clothing to the tree and ask Saint Marina to make them better.

Tassos and I both wanted this Baptism to happen and once the proposal was received by the powers that be in the UN, they quickly agreed to pursue it, but it also had to be agreed by the authorities on both sides of the Buffer Zone. In fairness to all involved, it was agreed without too much fuss but there were certain restrictions.

There are armed soldiers in lookout posts on the northern side of the Buffer Zone and there are signs indicating that certain areas are protected by land mines, so it is important to ensure that any civilian activity is properly marshalled. 

Only a certain number of people could attend the ceremony and a limited number of cars were allowed into the Buffer Zone to get to the church and the registration numbers of those cars and details of the occupants had to be made available in advance of the event.

The rest had to park outside the Buffer Zone and walk to the church. This presented a difficulty for the older people because it was a good walk in rough terrain in the heat of the May sun, so the UN organised a mini bus to collect these people and deliver them to and from the church.

It was an early start on the morning of the baptism as a few volunteers were authorised to enter the Buffer Zone at 6.30am to prepare the chapel. Tables and chairs were set up outside where light refreshments would be served afterwards.

It was a long, hot day, but everything went according to plan. The invited guests adjourned to a local hall after the ceremony where a proper celebration took place. The parents of the child were delighted with their day and they were very grateful. I was happy to have played a small part in making it happen for the family.

A few weeks ago, while I was in Cyprus, I was contacted by Tassos. We have kept in touch over the years and we are both retired now. He invited me to his house in Dherynia for a coffee and it was lovely to meet him again for a catch up.

When I left Tassos, I called to a pharmacy in Dherynia on the way home. I know the owner and I wanted to say hello. When I went in, he was busy with one of his staff, but I told another staff member that I would wait until he was free.

He soon appeared and asked me how he could help me. I told him that I was just calling to say hello, but it was obvious that he had no idea who I was. Then his eyes widened as it began to dawn on him. He grabbed my hand. He was genuinely happy to see me and couldn’t wait to show me a picture of his daughter who was baptised in the Agia Marina chapel five years previously.

I am regularly asked what it is that I love about Cyprus. Well, it’s that kind of thing.

I was listening to a conversation on the radio recently about people being washed in a tin bath in the kitchen back in the day. A contributor to the programme was explaining how, before bathrooms became common place, the bath was brought into the kitchen on bath night. It was placed in front of the fire and the kids were washed in turn.

Listeners were texting and tweeting the programme in their droves because they couldn’t believe their ears. They were horrified that several kids were washed in the same water and, in the kitchen of all places, where privacy had to be an issue with people coming and going.

I was laughing to myself but I found it strange that so many people were astonished at this carry on and they were commenting as if this was something that happened in the dark ages. It surprised me because I remember those days clearly and they weren’t that long ago.

We had a tin bath at home with a handle on either end, and it used to hang from a hook on the wall in our back yard. It was light and easy to carry, and it would be brought into the kitchen, usually on a Saturday night and placed on the floor in front of the range where it would be filled with pots of hot water from the stove.

Using the same water to wash several children was a difficult concept for some, but the reality was that it took a big effort to heat enough water to fill the bath in the first place, so they made use of it while they had it.

We lived in a small terraced house, so privacy would have been difficult at the best of times. Space was at a premium, but it wasn’t an issue for me because I was only a child. I don’t know what the adults did or even if they could fit into the bath because I don’t remember it being that big.

That got me thinking about what else younger listeners might have found unusual and I immediately thought of the outdoor toilet. I remember ours was in the corner of the back yard, so you had to go out through the back door and down some steps to get to it. It was a small space, with white-washed walls on the inside and a bare light bulb that came to life when you pulled a string.

It had a corrugated iron roof which didn’t do anything for heat retention and when it rained it got pretty noisy in there.

The cistern was overhead and to flush the toilet you had to pull a chain with a wooden handle attached to the end of it. There was a flimsy timber door on the loo that closed with a simple latch but the bottom of it was about seven or eight inches off the ground so there was plenty of room for all kinds of creatures to get in. And they frequently did.

It was a challenge going out there on a cold, wet, windy, winters night and the howling gale coming under the door would guarantee that your visit would be a short one. There was no triple-ply soft tissue paper either, but we won’t go there.

For a child, it was no fun going to the loo in the dark, especially if there was any mention of ghosts and things that go bump in the night. I’m sure my mother often had to stand guard at the top of the steps until I was ready to come back indoors.

There was a scullery, just outside the back door, which was basically a small porch that was used as a kind of cold storage area. There was a small press on the wall that was covered in wire mesh and that’s where the milk and butter were kept because there was no fridge either.

Brown bread was always being made in the kitchen and other loaves were delivered by the breadman who made his rounds on a horse and carriage from O’Reilly’s bakery. Bottled milk was delivered every morning and it had to be brought in straight away before the birds pecked through the foil top to get at the cream. The milkman was a useful alarm clock too because you couldn’t miss the sound of the bottles banging off each other as he went from door to door.

There was no such thing as hot running water, only a cold tap that sat over a large white ceramic sink that weighed a ton. If you wanted a cup of tea you had to boil a kettle on the range. The range was constantly on the go and was rarely allowed to go out. It would be banked down with slack at night so it would be ready for action again first thing in the morning.

Slack was like coal dust with little scraps of coal in it and that went on top of the fire to form a kind of crust that would keep the fire ticking over for the night as long as the door was closed on the range so the air couldn’t get at it.

Before central heating came into fashion, the fire was the main source of heat so the only part of the house that was warm in the winter, was the room with the fire in it. If we were sick in the winter time, my mother would light the fire in the bedroom and that was a real treat. I can’t imagine the parents of today carrying a bucket of coal upstairs somehow.

It all sounds strange now, but it doesn’t seem that long ago either. Or maybe I’m just pushing on.

A row has been brewing in Cobh for some time now about the closure of the Five-Foot-Way while cruise liners are being moored to the quayside. That’s parking in other words.

For those not familiar with the area, the Five-Foot-Way is a sea front walkway that takes you from the west side of the town into the town centre via the Deep-Water Quay where the cruise ships are normally berthed. Another word for parked.

The issue that’s causing all the angst is that while the liners are going through the process of tying onto the quay wall with large ropes, the walkway is closed to the public. This may not seem like much of an inconvenience, but it is for some. For others it represents an assault on a long-established right of way that needs to be defended.

The dispute between residents and Port of Cork escalated last year when the Disney Magic cruise ship was in Cobh and the walkway was closed for several hours. Private security personnel were on duty there to prevent access, but the Port of Cork says it’s necessary to close that off that area at these times for health and safety reasons.

Sean O’Riordan wrote in the Irish Examiner that those who held a protest against the Port of Cork’s closing of a supposed public right of way for the arrival of Cobh’s first cruise liner of the year, have been urged to ditch their placards for the sake of the town’s tourism industry.

Cllr Sinead Sheppard said that she was “very disappointed” to see a protest taking place when the first liner of the season arrived, and Cllr Cathal Rasmussen said people on holidays don’t want to see a protest. “At the end of the day it’s a legal issue and if people are genuinely upset, they should go down the legal route,” he said.

“If a rope broke and hit somebody and killed them then we’d have a major issue,” Cllr Rasmussen said.

It is expected that 102 cruise ships will visit Cobh this year, carrying 200,000 passengers and 80,000 crew, so it’s big business but who’s right?

Well, here’s how I see it. I walk into town almost every day, along the Five-Foot Way. I do it all year round. The scenery changes all the time and the sea breeze is refreshing even in the depths of winter. It’s a very popular route for many taking a bit of exercise.

I have been prevented from going through the Deep-Water Quay on a few occasions. While it is annoying, it’s not the end of the world. It means backing up a bit and taking the footbridge over the railway line and continuing into town along the Lower Road. It’s more inconvenient for prams or for anyone suffering from mobility issues.

It is frustrating to have strangers preventing us from going about our normal routine but some of the frustration could be prevented if the safety issue was clarified.

I have no desire to have my life ended prematurely because of a mishap on the quayside while a ship is going through the docking process. If I am under threat from a snapping line or some other potential hazard, then explain that to me and I’ll probably be more understanding.

I have spoken to a few guys in the maritime industry who say that mooring lines are designed to drop and not lash and that the newer ships have special mechanics that tension the lines according to their need. Larger ships have technology to assist them coming alongside and lines are not used as they are on smaller vessels.

I was also advised that the lines are made from synthetic material and if they snap, they are designed to collapse without recoil.

On the other hand, I was in contact with a friend of mine who has spent his life in this business, and he directed me to a few links on the Internet involving mooring line incidents showing accidents resulting from snapping lines.

In June 2018, two workers died and two were injured in an incident at the Port of Longview, in Washington, US. when one of the lines attached to the bulk carrier MV Ansac Splendor snapped in half and recoiled toward the dock and the vessel. The line broke as the vessel attempted to move along the dock from one loading hatch to another.

These incidents appear to involve death or injury to workers on board vessels only. I haven’t found any report of one where bystanders were involved, but my research was limited.

I’m told that while ships do have self- tightening winches, these are used when they’re alongside but it’s when the first few lines are being attached while docking and being removed when leaving, that the strain is huge.

The point in all this, is that I have no idea who is right or wrong, but there is confusion. I don’t have any experience in this area, but I would like to know for certain what the risk is. I’m not talking about the right-of-way question. That’s a separate issue and probably one to be resolved ultimately in the courts.

Blocking access to the quayside is a relatively new departure but if there is a genuine risk to bystanders while a ship is docking and departing, then so be it. Much of the irritation though, stems from a suspicion that this is an overkill and that it’s just health and safety gone mad.

It has also been suggested that it’s being done to facilitate tour coaches who can position themselves more easily without pedestrians wandering about. But if the quayside is such a hostile environment, should these coaches and personnel even be there in the first place?

Why is it so complicated?

About fifteen years ago I was driving down from Dublin with a buddy of mine, Simon Walsh. I think we had been at an all-day meeting in the Capital, but I had to be at work for 10pm that night so we were heading back to Cork.

About half way down the road, my foot started to get very sore and it was bothering me. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. I went over the day’s events in my head and I couldn’t remember banging it or someone standing on it, so it was a complete mystery to me.

After a while, I took off my shoe to relieve some of the pressure, but it was no good and soon, the pain became so intense that I had to ask Simon to take over the driving. When I got home, I limped around the place, changed into my uniform, took some tablets and went off to work.

As the night wore on, it got worse and by midnight the pain was unbearable, so I asked the lads in a patrol car to take me to the hospital. I hobbled into the Accident and Emergency Department feeling a bit silly because I had no idea what had happened. All I knew was that I had managed to break a bone in my foot.

A doctor told me to sit on the edge of a trolley while he peeled off my sock. The pain from that simple manoeuvre nearly sent me through the ceiling and I could see that it was all red and inflamed at the joint where the big toe meets the foot. The doctor took one look at it and then smiled at me and told me it was gout. He touched it with his finger and I nearly passed out from the pain.

I’m sure I left a roar out of me and nearly kicked him in the head. I was convinced the guy was an idiot and I insisted that my foot should be x-rayed because there was definitely something broken. There was no other explanation for the level of pain I was experiencing but he was certain of his diagnosis. He was smiling broadly as if he was enjoying my discomfort.

He gave me some anti-inflammatories and told me to keep my foot elevated. I went back to work and sat in the office with my foot up on a chair and every time I explained to someone that I was suffering from a dose of gout, they laughed. Despite my obvious discomfort I got absolutely no sympathy, and everyone thought it was hilarious.

I suffered on for the night and eventually the tablets kicked in and I got some ease from the pain. The following day I went to my GP to tell him of my experience and he just laughed at me as well.

It might have something to do with the name. Maybe ‘Gout’ just sounds funny. If you tell someone you have a tooth-ache, an ulcer, an inflamed appendix or even a dose of piles you get a sympathetic reaction. People will wish you well, offer some words of comfort and maybe even inquire if they can do anything to help.

But as soon as you say ‘Gout’, they collapse in laughter.

I occasionally get a touch of it now, but I can usually spot the signs early on and pop a tablet before it gets a foothold, excuse the pun, but I stopped telling people why I might be limping because they only get pleasure from it. Telling someone you have gout is like telling a joke and you get the same result.

You get plenty of advice about cutting down on pheasant and red wine because gout is supposed to be a rich man’s disease. It affected King Henry VIII who was notorious for living the high life on a rich diet. I never ate pheasant in my life, and I don’t particularly like wine but that doesn’t stop people accusing me of having the same diet as the fat monarch.

Gout is caused by a build up of uric acid in the body. The uric acid comes from purines and these purines can be found in lots of different food and drinks and if you ask me, they can be found in almost everything. Over the years, I have found certain triggers that are likely to bring on an episode and one of them is pure orange juice. A couple of glasses of that and I’m on the way.

Another one is dehydration. I need to keep myself hydrated and I have developed a habit of always having a pint of water near the kitchen sink and I take a sip whenever I pass it.   

Fortunately, I don’t get it very often now and even when I do it’s always in the same place and it doesn’t last more than a night but there are more serious cases out there. I know of some guys who get it in several places at once, like the joints in the feet, knees, elbows and fingers. Some are on daily medication to keep it at bay.

It’s a form of arthritis that affects millions of people all over the world and despite being nicknamed the ‘disease of kings’, it is not a rich man’s ailment. Neither is it a punishment from God for a licentious lifestyle as some myths suggest but it is extremely painful and that’s not a myth.

Hyperuricemia is another name for a build-up of uric acid in the body and I’m going to use that instead of ‘gout’ from now on and maybe I’ll get more sympathy.

But they’ll probably still laugh at me when I try to pronounce it.

Ryan Tubridy was talking about the death of Laura Brennan on his morning radio show last week. Laura was only 26 years old when she died, and she was one of Ireland’s leading patient advocates and HPV vaccine campaigner.

She was a remarkable young lady who suffered from cervical cancer and campaigned for young women to take the HPV vaccine to protect them from the type of cancer that ended her short life.

Ryan Tubridy was explaining how he had met Laura on a number of occasions and had been very taken with her positivity and sense of humour. He was expressing how he felt about her passing but then faltered slightly and commented that he was being careful about what he said because he was conscious of how some cancer patients talk about their illness.

He was reluctant to speak in terms of fighter, fighting and battling because people with cancer tend to hate using those words. I’m paraphrasing here but that was the gist of what he said.

He was speaking in glowing terms of this young lady who obviously made an impression on him, yet he couldn’t speak freely for fear of upsetting some other cancer patients, or people in the medical profession, who have taken it upon themselves to decide for the rest of us, that sufferers can be offended by certain words or phrases.

Political correctness exponents have once again pounced on language they consider to be offensive, hurtful or inappropriate and have made it difficult for us to show support for those with cancer. It’s being suggested that we should stop using terms like ‘fighting’ cancer and instead, treat it like any other illness.

Who comes up with this kind of rubbish? This only succeeds in making people feel more uncomfortable when offering good wishes to someone they know is dealing with cancer. This is nonsense and it infuriates me that some people insist on telling the rest of us what to say and how we should say it.

Simon Jenkins reported in The Guardian that people with cancer are fed up with the language of war. A poll conducted by Macmillan Cancer Support found that many people with cancer are fed up with it and they want to be treated like anyone else who is ill.

He says, the taboo that surrounds cancer is still intense. Until the middle of the last century, its apparent incurability made it the great unmentionable and that taboo still turns initial diagnosis of the commonest and most curable cancers such as breast, bowel, lung and prostate, into a devastating blow that can be treated as a premonition of death by family and friends.

He reported that a sensible approach to cancer should owe less to the language of the Pentagon and more to a local GP surgery. It would comfort thousands of ordinary mortals, who want to handle this illness like any other. In most cases, this means: “Have you a cancer? I am so sorry, when are they taking it out?”

Now, here’s the thing. I find all that nonsense offensive and I’m not easily offended. I think it’s about time that we put a stop to these ‘vocabulary police’, as I saw them described, and tell them to mind their own business and keep their opinions to themselves.

Cancer is personal and I know that having been through it myself and even though I was at the lower end of the scale, I was still worried. I knew in my heart and soul that prostate cancer is very treatable if it’s caught in time but that doesn’t take away the fear because I have seen what cancer can do.

My sister died a young woman from breast cancer after many treatments and many years of fighting the disease. Yes, she fought it, battled it and never gave up but it beat her in the end. Not because she ‘gave up’ or ‘lost the will’ or ‘failed’, it was just that the disease was too strong. Asking her, “Have you a cancer? I am so sorry, when are they taking it out?” wouldn’t have been helpful.

She wanted more than anything to stay alive for her family, but she couldn’t, and she was extremely brave in the way she dealt with it.  She was in her mid-forties with a husband and two young children.

My father and mother died from cancer too and I was with them both from start to finish so I don’t need anyone telling me how to speak to a cancer patient. 

From my own perspective, I was only too delighted with the support I received. I appreciated it when people came up to me and wished me well. It didn’t bother me what language they used or what form of words they chose because I knew they were just being supportive. They meant well whatever they said or however it came out.

It’s tough enough for family and friends having to cope with someone who is dealing with this illness without adding the extra stress of having to worry about causing offense every time they open their mouths.

I put it out there when I had my surgery because I wanted to create awareness among men about prostate cancer. I have been contacted by many since then by phone, email and personally on the street and I have no difficulty discussing it with anyone and I tell it as it happened.

Some want to know about symptoms, some about the surgery and others are more concerned with the aftermath. It’s personal to them and everyone is different, and I’ll be completely honest with them. There’s one thing for certain. I’ll never ask; “Have you a cancer? I am so sorry, when are they taking it out?”

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.