Month: July 2016

Cork Harbour is the second largest natural harbour in the world after Sydney Harbour. There are others who might lay claim to this title like Poole Harbour in Dorset in England or San Francisco Bay in the United States but until proven otherwise, I’m staking a claim for Cork.

Cork Harbour has a lot going for it and is home to the oldest yacht club in the world, the Royal Cork Yacht Club, founded in 1720. Cobh, in the lower harbour, was the Titanic’s last port of call on its fateful journey. The world’s first motor boat race took place in Cork Harbour and the first steam ship to cross the Atlantic in 1836, The Sirius, left from Cork.

We have Haulbowline Island, home to the Irish Naval Service, Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle at opposite sides of the harbour entrance, Spike Island and a number of Martello Towers around the harbour and Queenstown. All steeped in history but it seems to me that we aren’t taking full advantage of it

Indaver are currently trying to get permission to build a municipal waste incinerator in the harbour. Apart from the rights and wrongs of the argument in relation to potential emissions and health implications for people living in the area, this proposal is hardly the most attractive proposition in terms of providing a tourist attraction for Cork Harbour.

Already as you enter the harbour you can see Whitegate Oil Refinery with its collection of tanks and pipes. You can see Ireland’s largest power station in Aghada with its high rise stacks and you can admire the remains of Irish Steel in Haulbowline and the black slag heap that still remains there.

We have thousands of visitors coming to Cork by cruise liner alone every year and they have to enter through Cork Harbour. They come despite the fact that we don’t have a Mediterranean climate so the weather isn’t a major issue. We do have other things going for us like history, scenery and a friendly disposition but with some imagination we should be able to offer even more. Building an incinerator as a point of local interest is unlikely to boost the numbers.

We could look at Sydney Harbour for some inspiration. The harbour is dotted with hundreds of sailing boats, cruise boats and ferries. Around Sydney Harbour you’ll also find national parks, World Heritage sites, rich Aboriginal heritage and early colonial history. On the water, above the water or below it, there’s a lot to do.

You can also experience Sydney Harbour and the islands by ferry or kayak, including Fort Denison, Shark Island, Rodd and Goat Island. You can camp overnight in the middle of Sydney Harbour on World Heritage-listed Cockatoo Island. You can tour the harbour on a sailing ship, take jet boat rides or catch a water taxi to a harbour-side restaurant.

Darling Harbour, next door to Sydney Harbour, is the poor relation. It was once a thriving port area but began to decline after the Second World War until it eventually became a wasteland. In 1984 the Government decided to redevelop Darling Harbour in time for Australia’s bicentennial.

In 1998 Darling Harbour began preparations for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. In 2000 it hosted five sports during the Olympic Games. They towed an old ship into the harbour and transformed it into a nightclub with bars and restaurants and renovated the quayside.

This was all done in a relatively short time frame and is an example of what can be done with a lot of effort and some imagination.

So contrast that with the situation in Cork Harbour. Local residents in the harbour area, students and staff at the National Maritime College are all protesting over plans by a waste management company to build a €160 million twin incinerator.

The protestors are concerned about the health implications of having a 160,000-tonne twin incinerator on their doorstep. Apart from the implications for the environment they are also concerned about the ability of the infrastructure to cope with the certain increase in traffic to and from the proposed plant. All legitimate fears but there is another issue.

Why is it necessary to be even having this argument? Surely it should be in interest of everyone to start appreciating the natural beauty that we have in our midst and invest in it for the future. We need to make the harbour area more attractive for ourselves and our visitors. We could begin by removing that unsightly and unhealthy slag heap.

We should develop the landmarks in and around the area and make them more accessible, particularly by water. There is so much potential in the harbour area but sticking an incinerator in the middle of it is not the way to harness it. On the other hand, maybe we are not capable of doing something like that.

There is a small local amenity in Cobh known as the Five Foot Way and it includes a walkway into the town that runs along the edge of the river. Cobh Town Council and Cobh Tidy Towns Committee have made a serious effort to improve the area as an amenity for tourists. There is a children’s playground, an outdoor exercise facility and parking bays for camper vans. It is adjacent to the berthing area for the cruise liners so it is the first place that the visitors see when they leave the ship.

Every day without fail this walkway is full of dog crap. People obviously bring their dogs out early in the morning and let them run wild around one of our main tourist spots to create dirt and spoil the place for everyone else. If our own local people can’t look after something as simple as this, what is the point in trying to be more ambitious?

 

 

Exercise is now fast becoming something of an obsession for a great many people. Gym membership is a must have, running shoes sit in most hallways and bicycles have made a huge comeback in recent years. I read somewhere that cycling and fitness issues generally tend to increase during a period of recession.

There was an old storyteller, Eamonn Kelly, who used to comment about royalty in Ireland in olden times and he would say; “At that time in Ireland, you couldn’t throw a stone without rising a lump on the back of a kings head they were so plentiful.” Well the same could be said of our fitness devotees today. They’re all over the place.

For people who seem so intent on improving their odds for living a longer life, many of them seem to go out of their way in an effort to shorten it.

For some strange reason there are many joggers who insist on running on a busy roadway instead of getting up onto the footpath. Many more of them have still not grasped the idea that wearing bright coloured clothing just might make them more visible to motorists and therefore could increase their chances of finishing the run without the aid of an ambulance.

There was a case in the High Court recently involving a woman who was injured when a wing mirror on a van hit her as she was out jogging. She was awarded €134,000 damages and Mr. Justice Kevin Cross said the lady suffered quite significant injuries.

The driver of the van had accepted some liability but also pleaded that the accident was in the main caused by the lady who, with a friend, was jogging two abreast on the road. She was also criticised for not having a high visibility jacket.

Cyclists are another issue. They seem to think that they have a divine right to do what they like regardless of the rules of the road. They hunt in packs and hold up traffic. There are many of them who believe that traffic lights are for ordinary mortals and the red light doesn’t apply to them. Many of them use footpaths as extra cycling lanes.

With some sensible precautions and a little consideration for those using the roadway, there’s no reason why we can’t all be accommodated safely. The likelihood is that if things get out of hand, the cyclists and joggers will come out second best. Accidents can happen at any time but there’s no need to go looking for trouble. But some people can’t help themselves.

I have some friends who look forward to their annual adventure holidays. They head off to strange places and subject their bodies to various feats of endurance. They get a kick out of testing their ability to survive violent experiences while at the same time having some fun.

I have been endowed with a body that is not designed to defy gravity. I also have a deep-seated hatred of two things namely, sweat and pain. Over the years, I have experienced my fair share of both and I see absolutely no reason to go looking for extra doses of either. Activity holidays are out for me. I have no desire to haul my body up a mountain, chuck it out of a plane or drag it across a desert. My idea of bliss is an inactive holiday.

Like most normal people, I struggle throughout the Irish winter and I look forward to a summer break and to exclude all thoughts of physical exertion of any kind. But it doesn’t always necessarily work out that way.

My kids are at an age where they would rather contract a dose of leprosy than have a holiday with the parents. I can remember when they were younger how hard it was bringing them on holidays. They always needed to be amused, stimulated, fed or covered with factor 20. It was a full time job minding them.

A lie-in was a rare occurrence because every morning you would have to get up at the crack of dawn to race the Germans and the Dutch through the complex to get a towel on a poolside bed. Failure meant you were rejected by the family.

I longed for them to grow up. (The children, not the Germans and Dutch). Now that they have grown, they want something else and are only prepared to suffer us ‘old folk’ if we do something different, like skiing. I don’t see the need to pay a small fortune to go somewhere to experience the cold when I can do it here for free. If I get the urge to see what the top of a mountain looks like, I can watch ‘The Sound of Music’.

I don’t ask for too much. I just want to arrive at my resort after a short flight, armed with a supply of books. I want my air-conditioned apartment to be on the ground floor and I want a sunbed reserved for me every day. I want it to be positioned strategically between the pool, the bar and the restaurant.

I also want a ban on all music, kiddies clubs and noise and I want under- twenty -fives barred from my complex and the immediate execution of anyone attempting to start up a conversation. I want any fun loving holiday rep that makes even the slightest effort at starting any type of activity to be sent to the nearest shark infested river.

It’s not going to happen though, so I may as well pack my gloves, my woolly hat and my anti-inflammatory pills. I know where I am going to end up this year and it won’t be where I want. It’s what always happens when I put my foot down.

 

I have a cousin and she’s fond of saying; “There’s nowt as queer as folk.” And she is spot on. People can be strange and the behaviour of some can be difficult to understand even by members of the same family.

I was talking recently to a friend of mine and she told me a story about how she had lost contact with her brother many years previously. I was curious and thought that maybe he had travelled to some far flung country and had simply disappeared. But the truth of it is that not only is he living in the same country but he is in the same county. He chose not to have any contact. He has made it clear that he doesn’t want to keep in touch with family members and he has no explanation to offer for his decision.

Apparently he got married some thirty odd years earlier and from the day of the wedding he began to lose contact with his family. As time wore on, the contact became less and less until one day it ceased completely. This struck a chord with me because I had heard a similar story about another guy who had acted in exactly the same way.

This character is a younger man who was part of a loving family. He had behaved normally for most of his adult life and he had a good job and everything seemed to be going in his favour. Then one day he got married and went to live not too far away from his family. But the day he got married was the day he seemingly decided that he was going to have no more to do with them.

The family members have no idea what brought about this change and they are unlikely to be any wiser until such time as he decides to tell them. The way he is currently behaving gives no indication that this is likely to be any time soon. By the time he does decide to enlighten them it may be too late, because while initially they had a certain amount of sympathy for him, this has now turned to anger. The longer it goes on, the angrier they get.

Then one morning I was listening to the radio and the presenter read out an email from somebody with a similar story. As the show went on he started to get more calls, texts and emails from other people who had experienced the same thing. So much so he decided that he would dedicate an entire programme to this specific topic at some future date.

It turns out that something I had thought of as being an unusual event is actually a huge issue for a lot of people. It would seem that there are plenty of children who reject their parents into adulthood. The other surprising thing about these situations is that in most cases, the parents have no explanation or reason for why this has happened. Those involved in these situations refer to themselves as being estranged from their adult children.

Anyone looking for more information about this just needs to Google ‘Estranged adult children’.

From my little experience of this phenomenon I can say that there is a lot of pain and suffering caused to the family members that have been cut off. I’m sure there must also be a certain amount of embarrassment at constantly trying to explain the absence of a family member and having to come up with excuses as to why that person is never around. It must also be frustrating trying to figure out how that situation developed and what it was that caused that person to cut the ties in the first place.

There is one possible explanation. It could be that the adult child is in a relationship in which he or she is being manipulated by the partner and could be a victim of the Stockholm syndrome.

According to Christine Louis de Canonville, Psychotherapist, Stockholm syndrome is a psychological term used to describe the relationship that sometimes develops between a captor and a hostage. In such a relationship the hostage expresses empathy and positive feelings towards their abusive captor and often they will display a desire to defend them.

The psychological term, Stockholm syndrome came about after a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1973, in which four employees were held hostage by two captors for six days. During this relatively short time it was noted that the hostages had managed to develop a strong emotional attachment to their captors.

It would seem that the hostage’s empathetic feelings toward their captors were due to acts of kindness they had been shown during their ordeal. Unbelievably, these small acts of kindness seemed to negate the fact that their lives had been threatened, and even several months after being released, some of the hostages still wanted to defend their captors.

The Stockholm episode sparked off great interest and research into the phenomenon of emotional bonding between captors and captives, (abusers and victims). Studies have revealed that this behaviour in the captives does indeed occur in many situations, for example, narcissistic abuse, battering (men and women), abused children, incest victims, rape victims, cult members, prison camps, pimp-procured prostitutes, prisoners of war, etc.

If this is the case then I might have to rethink my solution for getting the misguided son back home. Before looking into this I had thought that giving him a swift kick up the backside and telling him to go home and see his mother would have been the answer. Now though, I think that this is unlikely to work and something a little more scientific might be required.

Many years ago myself and an older colleague received a call to go to the scene of a theft in a local supermarket. When we got there we found that the owner had a young woman detained in his office. He took us outside and told us that she had stolen something small and was not a regular thief. He said that he didn’t want her to be prosecuted but he wanted her to get a good fright.

My colleague looked at the owner and told him that he shouldn’t have called the police because what he really wanted was a ghost. The owner got a little embarrassed but I thought it was brilliant.

While I have seen many strange things throughout my life, there was usually a reasonable explanation for most of them. There are some circumstances that can cause the mind to play tricks such as dealing with some incident in the dead of night where you might potentially be finding a dead body. Certain situations can cause you to see things that aren’t there and can lead you to imagine all sorts of weird scenarios.

I remember one time calling to a house during the night after neighbours had become concerned for the safety of the occupant after he hadn’t been seen for a few days. He was living on his own and there was no reply when we knocked. There was, however, a partially open window at the back of the house.

With the aid of a ladder I climbed up into the blackness and managed to open the window enough for me to squeeze through. At the point where I was half in and half out of the window I started to wonder what I was going to find. My mind went into overdrive in the darkness and I began to imagine the deceased in several different settings.

He could possibly have died in a violent struggle and there could be parts of him scattered all over the house. He could be only half dead and waiting for me to climb in further so he could bash my brains out with a three iron. He could have been murdered and the murderer could be waiting to claim his second victim of the evening.

As it happened, I found his bedroom with the bed clothes thrown back neatly. I made my way downstairs where I found a warm kettle and a warm pot on the stove. It turned out that the guy was alive and well. He had recently taken up a part-time night watchman job and was gone to work. He was fine.

As youngsters we hear stories of witches, ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. Stories of strange unexplained events have been passed down through generations. I suppose all that lies somewhere in the recesses of our minds only to be pulled out when we find ourselves in unusual situations. But as adults we can rationalise that it’s all just a load of old bunkum. Or is it?

Are we alone? Is it possible that spirits can make contact with us from some afterlife? I was always convinced that when we die we die and that’s that but now I’m not so sure.

My daughter went to a medium not so long ago. I told her she was daft and that she would be better off putting the money towards a few gin and tonics for herself. But she went anyway. While she was with this guy she made notes as he was talking. Some of what he was saying made some sense to her and some of it didn’t. In any event she enjoyed the visit.

Over the following few days she was looking over her notes and more of what she was told began to ring a bell. Certain personal things that he told her turned out to be very accurate. Information he gave her about the deceased people he was communicating with was very close to the bone and it was difficult to see how he could have known about it.

He described a particular room to her that a spirit was telling him he liked to visit to watch over the family. He described it very accurately including a painting over the fireplace. There was one thing he told her about the fireplace being out of alignment that didn’t fit but she just put it out of her mind. The room being described, by the way, was my sitting room.

Recently my daughter and I were sitting in that very room watching the television when all of a sudden she sat bolt upright in the chair. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring at the fireplace. There is a little column or pillar on either side of it and one of them is slightly tilted to one side making it look slightly out of alignment.

So are there certain people who have some sort of psychic ability to communicate with a spirit world? If that is the case then it opens up a whole different set of circumstances. That could mean that when I’m sitting in my recliner minding my own business, just reading the paper, I might not be alone. There could be someone else in the room with me or maybe even a small crowd for all I know.

On the one hand it’s a little unnerving to think I might be sharing my room with some spirits. On the other hand, unlike dealing with the living, they don’t annoy me. I don’t have to feed them. I don’t have to give them my best whisky, entertain them or tidy up after them. All in all, they’re no bother.