Month: September 2017

I’m all for people having something to do in their spare time. Something to distract them from the day to day struggles of life and work and something that brings a bit of fun to a busy schedule.

I don’t want to cast aspersions on what anyone does on their time off or what they chose to do to unwind. Each to his own I say. It’s a free country and we live in a democracy so live and let live. But how is it possible for someone to have a hobby that involves staring at trains or aeroplanes? What is all that about?

I was on holidays and I was having breakfast next to a beach on a lovely sunny morning. I spotted a guy sitting at a table nearby. He had what looked like a notebook in front of him and he was using a pair of binoculars. At first, I thought that the guy was a bit of a pervert looking at the girls out swimming. Then I realised that he was in fact watching the planes coming and going from Larnaca Airport in Cyprus.

Now, like I said, live and let live and all that but what can possibly be relaxing about that? It’s fairly predictable that a plane coming in to land will descend with a gradual decline. Similarly, the reverse is true when the plane is taking off.

There is a gradual incline until the aircraft reaches a certain altitude and then it levels out. So why does someone choose to sit on a chair in the sun for prolonged periods watching something that never really changes?

If it was possible to observe the planes as they flew over the Bermuda Triangle then that might make sense. There could be a chance that they might see one disappear and then they would have something to put in their little notebook. That would be exciting and it would be a nice story for the guys in the pub later in the evening.

But whatever about planes, train spotting just has me completely baffled. There is a small train that travels the Cork to Cobh line every hour. It goes up to Cork on the hour and back down to Cobh on the half hour. Or vice versa, I can never remember which it is. But either way, there is nothing momentous about these journeys.

They go up on one set of tracks and they come back down on the other. Every now and then the driver toots his horn and that’s about the height of the excitement. It’s a great service and many people rely on it but could someone please explain to me why anyone would want to bother watching it passing in and out all day? They’re probably not going to see too much.

Having said that, there was the time in May 1995 when an empty passenger train coming from Cork failed to stop at the platform in Cobh Station and crashed through the buffer stop and went through the wall into the Heritage Centre and ended up partly inside the exhibition hall.

Now, that was something that would have been worth seeing. But this happened in 1995 and not much else has happened in the last twenty odd years. So, it’s probably fair to assume that on most days, not a lot happens that would be considered remotely exciting.

The topic of hobbies can crop up anywhere. Some prospective employers like to ask about hobbies at interviews because they reckon that they can get a feel for the kind of person they are dealing with by having a look at what that they do in their spare time. So, it seems that your choice of hobby could potentially influence a prospective employer and could play a part in deciding whether you get a job or not.

That can be dangerous if the person doing the interviewing doesn’t understand the hobby. One guy put down on his CV that he collected cigar wrappers. The employer was at first inclined to throw it in the shredder but decided to have a look at the guy to see what he was like.

There is a small paper band that goes around the cigar and when you peel it away, the wrapper comes off. Strangely enough, there are people who collect that little strip of paper and make a hobby out of it. Before you write them off as a complete nut job, just consider what is so interesting about this particular past-time and why the cigar band became so important.

Apparently, it started in Cuba. In the early days, there was very little packaging with cigars and they were usually just put in a wooden barrel or box, with the manufacturer’s name inscribed on the box. The cigars themselves were unwrapped and unmarked and this was a flaw in the system. Cheaper European cigars were sometimes put into these boxes and sold as fine imported Cuban cigars.

A cigar manufacturer in Cuba decided to place a paper band around his cigars with his signature on it and soon many other makers adopted this practice. This reduced counterfeiting and the practice spread from Cuba to cigar makers everywhere and led to elaborate, distinctive cigar band artwork being produced by highly-regarded commercial artists which makes them very collectable.

So, if you are an employer and you see a strange looking hobby on a candidates’ CV, have a chat with him about it. He might not be as daft as you think he is. As for the rest of us, maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to knock a hobby that someone else has just because we can’t understand it.

Except for the guys watching the planes and trains, they’re beyond understanding.

 

 

Last year I started a blog, trevorlaffan.com and I had no idea what I was doing. Today, I reached an amazing 20,000 visits to the site. Just in case you didn’t get that, I said 20,000 visits!!!

OK, I know it’s not up there with the big boys and girls but it’s not a bad start either.

I wanted the blog to be about my take on life in general, as I see it, and also about some of the issues that affect us all. I was also anxious that it would be easy to read and would hopefully be entertaining.

It has been great fun so far and your comments, whether complimentary or not, have always been appreciated. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to pop in for a read and with a bit of luck I’ll keep it going for another while.

Thanks again.

I think we have good reason to be a little concerned in this country when it comes to potential terrorist threats from Isis. I’m no longer a member of An Garda Siochana so I’m not privy to the inside story, but I would be fairly confident that the organisation is facing a bit of a crisis.

The Tánaiste, Frances Fitzgerald, thinks otherwise and she has insisted that the risk of a terror attack in Ireland remains low. She was speaking in the wake of the recent incident in Barcelona, Spain.

She explained: “Ireland generally is not at high risk. It’s possible but not likely. You can never tell where a terrorist will strike – that’s the reality. But there’s no intelligence to suggest that we are at risk.” She added that she’s been ‘impressed’ with the intelligence the gardaí have access to.

She said gardaí have the necessary intelligence, intervention capability and resources to deal with the threat of international terrorism. She said they were also supported by the Defence Forces and that all necessary resources and supports are being given.

Our Government leaders and senior police managers have been singing from the same hymn sheet and they have been consistent in this regard. They agree that a terrorist attack is possible in Ireland, but highly unlikely. What worries me, is how Frances and Co are reaching this conclusion.

Noirin O’Sullivan, recently retired garda commissioner, has said that 300 garda ethnic liaison officers have built up “very close relationships” with minority communities. She said that the gardaí had very good relations with minority communities and they have a number of officers who could speak a variety of languages.

To be relying on community gardai and garda ethnic liaison officers for gathering intelligence, makes little sense. Garda community policing members and ethnic liaison officers were usually one and the same thing and those people have been decimated in recent years, to the point of extinction in most areas of the country.

The role of the community garda and the garda ethnic liaison officer is to talk to people. To engage with representatives of the various communities in their area and to establish communication with each of them. They are a vital cog in the intelligence wheel.

They monitor racist incidents, liaise with victims, deal with local organisations providing support and develop relationships. They facilitate and encourage integration, assist in the investigation of racist incidents and ensure that appropriate support is available to members of ethnic minorities and monitor the delivery of appropriate policing services to ethnic minority communities.

This is fundamental work if you want to build trust and confidence in the community and vital if you want to generate relationships and develop two-way communication. So, how do you find out who your local ELO is?

According to the www.garda.ie, the list of Ethnic Liaison officers is available on the Garda website. I was curious and tried to find it but I couldn’t. When I Googled Garda Ethnic Liaison Officers, I did find a list and my name was on it along with two other retired colleagues. I suspect that many others on that list have moved on as well.

But that’s not my only concern. There are a couple of other things that have me worried.

Joshua Molloy, originally from Ballylinan in Co. Laois, served in the British Army for four years before joining Kurdish resistance fighters to fight against Isis. He has some experience when it comes to dealing with Isis and he made a very valid point in an article he wrote recently. He suggested that the time has come to put bollards in place on the pedestrianised streets in Dublin.

His argument is that there are many of these radical terrorists trading information on the Internet, encouraging each other to take action against the infidels. While those pulling the strings of Isil may not deem Ireland to be a legitimate target worthy of an attack, all it would take is for one lone wolf to take it upon himself to carry out an atrocity. For that reason alone, he suggests we should be better prepared.

The President of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors said the force is not adequately trained or resourced to deal with a terrorist attack. Antoinette Cunningham said that community policing has been decimated. She said that most intelligence gathering starts in local communities and when you don’t have community guards placed in local areas, then people cannot gather the intelligence that is needed to fight terrorism.

Dr Umar al Qadri, Imam and Chair of Irish Muslim Peace and Integration Council, is aware that a number of people in Ireland are spreading their “hate narrative” through social media and offline. He issued a warning two years ago that there were extremists in Ireland. He said that certain members of the Muslim leadership are allowing extremist views to be spread because they’re not “calling out” those who share views that are “un-Islamic”.

According to Tom Clonan, Security Analyst, there are five terror threat levels as they apply to Ireland, ranging from ‘Low’ to ‘Critical’. Currently, Ireland’s terror threat status lies at the second level, ‘Moderate’, meaning that an attack is possible but unlikely.

He can’t understand why despite recent terror attacks involving so called ‘lone wolf’ attackers employing ‘low-cost’ opportunistic means, the Minister for Justice and An Garda Siochana have not raised the threat level here.

A year ago, he would have considered that an Islamist attack in Ireland was – in theory – possible, but highly unlikely. He now says that an attack here is a distinct possibility and we should raise our threat level to that of ‘Substantial’ where an attack or incident is a ‘strong possibility’.

Maybe somebody should have a word with Frances Fitzgerald.

 

 

To the best of my knowledge, I have always been lefthanded. I didn’t do any training for it, it wasn’t a conscious decision I made, I just happen to have been born that way. Having said that, sometimes I’m righthanded.

I just assumed I was a little bit unusual, but now I have discovered that maybe that’s not the case.

You see, I write with my left hand, I play tennis with my right and I play golf with lefthanded clubs. I kick a ball with both feet, I use a knife with my left hand and a hammer with my right. There are some who have said that I look awkward swinging a lefthanded golf club but I suspect that they are only jealous of my unique style.

I use a toothbrush with my left hand, I paint with both hands but I use my right to operate a scissors. That’s because they are designed for right handed people. I hold a door key with my left hand and as most front doors have the lock on the right, I sometimes have to stand in the hedge to put the key in the lock.

Recently, I discovered that there are varying degrees of how dominant the left hand is over the right and there is a test that you can do to establish how lefthanded you are. I didn’t know that, so I did the online version of the test.
The results told me that while I am 49% left-handed, I am mostly ambidextrous. That explained a lot to me but I’m just not sure how it took me fifty-nine years to find that out.

It was never a big deal in my life and I don’t remember it ever being a problem, just a little inconvenient at times. We left-handers write across ourselves where conventional writers write away from their bodies. Most desks, particularly those with fold down flaps are designed for righthanders and this can be difficult for us in tight spaces.

If you happen to be a ciotog and you find yourself sitting in close proximity to a right-handed writer, then there will be a bit of fencing going on with the elbows. To compensate for that, we turn the paper at an angle and this can be awkward. Some lefties face their fingers towards themselves and write from a kind of inverted position and they look as if they have a claw. But you do what whatever suits to get the job done.

I have always written with my left hand. I have heard many fellow lefties through the years describe how teachers tried to force them to be ‘normal’. Trying to get them to switch to the more conventional right hand. There could have been a simple reason for this. It might have just been easier for teachers, to teach children to write if everyone in the class was doing it the same way.

There are many stories of nuns and brothers trying to ‘beat it out of youngsters’ but I wasn’t one of those. I must have been at the tail end of that drama because I don’t have any memory of being forced or even encouraged, to change hands. I do remember having a lay teacher for most of my time in a Christian Brothers run primary school and maybe that made a difference.

John Walsh was his name and he was an exceptional man. I never remember him losing his temper or even raising his voice. He was quietly spoken and he had a great way with kids. Later in life I got to know him a little and he was an absolute gentleman.

Other children weren’t so lucky and they suffered for their inability to use their right hand. Some were even subjected to violence to change their evil ways. There must have been kids who thought that they were performing some form of witchcraft or communicating with the Devil by using the left hand.

I sometimes wonder if children who were penalised for being lefthanded could have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder in later life. It may even have hampered their development and affected their self- esteem.

They say that around 10% of the world population could be lefthanded. With my newfound knowledge, I now suspect that a large percentage of those are more likely to be ambidextrous like me. Mainly because we have had to adapt to a righthanded world.

I don’t want to make it sound like a huge issue because it isn’t. We’re not dealing with life or death stuff here, it’s just a little awkward at times.

If you want to experience some of the difficulties that lefthanders face, try using a can opener with your weaker hand. Try cutting a piece of paper with a scissors, changing the time on your watch or simply turning the pages of a book with your left paw. These things are all designed for right handed people.

Some statistics claim we lefties have a shorter life span than right handed people. Considering the obstacles that you guys put in our way, it may not be too surprising to hear that we have more accidents than right-handed people. That may not be strictly scientific but it’s good enough for me and we’re entitled to be a little paranoid.

We have been second-class citizens for a long time but now we are starting to fight back. We have our own celebration, International Left-Handers Day, that we can enjoy with like- handed people.

Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci were lefties and so were Barak Obama, Bill Clinton, George Bush and Winston Churchill. So, I’m following a proud tradition of successful ciotogs.

Jack The Ripper was also left handed but we’ll say no more about that.

 

I was contacted by a friend of mine a few weeks ago and he recalled a story I told him while we were serving in Cyprus together. He suggested that I should tell it to a wider audience but I had to think about it for a while because it’s a little bit personal.

It has to do with the discovery of the body of an 11-year-old boy, called Robert Holohan, who was found in thick undergrowth near Inch Strand in Midleton, Co. Cork in January 2005. He had been missing since 4th January.

A search had been ongoing for Robert from the time of his disappearance until his body was located over a week later. An attempt had been made to conceal his body but he was discovered by members of a search party.

It was late in the afternoon that day, and I was sitting at home when I received a phone call from my boss, with instructions to gather a team together and head to Whitegate to preserve the scene for the night.

Roberts body had to remain where he was found until he could be examined by the State Pathologist. This procedure is essential for the collection of evidence and it was better to carry out the examination at first light instead of trying to do it in the dark with artificial light.

Over twenty of us arrived at the scene at 8pm. We had to establish an outer cordon to prevent any unauthorised access to the area and to protect the scene. Then, someone had to stay with the body for the same reasons. Myself and another guy took that job.

It was a bitterly cold night and frost settled on our jackets as the night wore on and we stayed there until we were relieved at 8am the following morning. I went home to bed but the cold was in my bones and it kept me awake.

I got up at some point to have a hot shower, made a hot whiskey and turned on the radio. There were many calls to a local radio station about the discovery of Robert’s body. Most of them were complaining about the body being left out in the elements all night. I knew that would be bothering the family.

Later in the day, I saw a news item on TV showing a priest leaving the Holohan family home. I rang Midleton Garda Station and got a phone number for the priest, Father O’Donovan, and I gave him a call.

I told Fr. O’Donovan about my duty the previous evening. I told him that I was with the boy all night and that he was treated with as much care and respect as I would have treated my own child. I told him that Robert wasn’t alone at any stage and while I would have liked to have wrapped him in a blanket and brought him home to his parents, that just wasn’t possible.

I suggested to him that if he thought that information might bring some comfort to the family that he should feel free to pass it on. We chatted for a little while and then hung up. As far as I was concerned, that was as much as I could do and if the parents got some consolation from it, that would be great. Nobody else knew that call was made and that’s how I wanted it.

I thought no more about the phone call until my wife rang me at work a few days later and asked me if I was watching Sky News. I turned on the TV and they were covering Roberts funeral. There was a conversation taking place about a phone call made by a policeman to a priest. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.

Fr. O’Donovan told the story during the service and the media had latched onto it. Initially, I was a little annoyed but then I realised that as my name wasn’t mentioned, it didn’t really matter.

Not long after that, I got a call from Fr. O’Donovan who wanted to apologise. He was feeling guilty that the details of a private phone call had been released so publicly and he wanted to explain.

Earlier that morning he got a phone call from President Mary McAleese who asked him to read out a statement on her behalf at the service. He told her about the call I had made to him and later, when he read the letter from Mrs. McAleese, our conversation came into his head and he blurted it out.

This was now becoming part of the story and that was never the intention. It was simply a call made from a parent, who happened to be a policeman, to be passed on to other parents in the hope that they might get some comfort from it.

The phone call received international attention from the media but it shouldn’t have. This is the kind of thing that is done routinely by the men and women of An Garda Siochana. It’s done quietly and usually goes unnoticed.

Gardai regularly deal with difficult situations that you can’t be trained for. You can be taught how to investigate a crime, preserve a scene and gather evidence but nobody can tell you how to react when you are alone with a body. Just the two of you and the silence.

Sergeant Liam Grimes is attached to the Garda Water Unit and he suggested that I should write this piece. He knows what it’s like. He has maintained many lonely vigils, on riverbanks and lakesides, with recovered human remains.

This is a not an unusual position for police officers to find themselves in, but you don’t often hear about it.