Month: September 2022

Anyone who has had prostate cancer will tell you that blood tests are a regular part of life, and it doesn’t matter how familiar you are with the procedure, there’s always a bit of anxiety while waiting for the results. You don’t want anything to be found that might interfere with your progress, but that possibility is ever present. Slight but present, nonetheless.

I’m still happy to get them done though. I’ve been having them for years and they have already saved my life once and I would advise any man over forty years of age who hasn’t had a conversation about prostate cancer with his GP, to do so immediately. Like today.

Public awareness campaigns continue to highlight the need for men to be aware of symptoms such as frequent urination, decreased force of urination, difficulty starting or stopping urine stream, blood in the semen, pain or discomfort in the pelvic area. If you experience any of these, you should consult your doctor, but my advice is not to wait for symptoms because they might never appear.

That needs to be shouted from the rooftops. I know I’m repeating myself but the majority of guys I know who have had prostate cancer had no symptoms, so we need to get that message out there. Creating awareness is important and as September is national prostate cancer awareness month, it seems appropriate to talk about it now.

Bill Turnbull, the former BBC broadcaster died as a result of this disease recently at the age of sixty-six. He went public with his diagnosis in 2018 and his campaigning saved lives and encouraged “thousands and thousands” of men to come forward for prostate cancer testing, experts say. Thanks to the publicity he generated, referrals to the NHS increased by about 20%, according to the charity Prostate Cancer UK.

Calls to its helpline also saw a large increase and they reckon news of his death could have a similar impact. Inspiring men to be tested for the illness was the “one useful thing” he had done in his life, Turnbull said, admitting he was “cross with myself” for the pride he had felt at not visiting a GP in four years.

Unfortunately, Turnbull’s story isn’t unusual because men are generally poor at looking after their health. We’re not great at asking for directions, reading instruction manuals, or multi-tasking either, but these failings are seldom fatal. Neglecting our health on the other hand can be, but avoiding the medical check-up is still a common complaint.

The thought of surgery, potential side effects and the inconvenience of it all can be off-putting. None of us likes to be poked and prodded but the consequences of ignoring a prostate issue are not good. The prospect of sitting in front of a medic and being told you have cancer might be scary and that’s understandable, but if you’re going to get that news, it’s better to get it early. Ignoring it won’t make it go away.

I’m not an expert when it comes to cancer, but I do know what it’s like to get rid of a dodgy prostate. I’m not going to tell you it was a pleasant experience because it wasn’t. The digital examinations, the biopsy, the surgery, the recovery and the side effects were all a pain in the butt, quite literally, but having said that, it wasn’t bad enough to put me off either. If I had to go through it all again, I would because the alternative is a lot more unpleasant.

It is a dangerous disease that needs to be taken seriously. Reassurance from well-wishers that it’s the best kind of cancer to get doesn’t really cut the mustard. While they don’t mean any harm, they don’t help either. The diagnosis will shake you up a bit initially but it’s not the end of the world once it’s caught in time and not every case requires surgery either.

Thankfully, improvements are constantly being made in the diagnosis and treatment. An article in The Times UK claimed that screening for prostate cancer could be possible within five years. Prostate screening has been notoriously difficult, but advances in genetics and medical imaging are hopefully going to change that.

Prostate cancer is still the most common cancer among men, but survival rates have improved dramatically. In the 1970s, only 25 per cent of those with a diagnosis lived more than ten years but now when detected early, over 92% of men survive. With early detection, this disease can be treated successfully.

There is plenty of support available too. MAC (Men Against Cancer) is an Irish volunteer patient support group for men with prostate or testicular cancer and for men who have other prostatic conditions.

Members provide non-medical support, counselling and information for those diagnosed with prostate cancer and their relatives, so they don’t have to face it alone. According to their website, MAC members provide peer support for patients and relatives which is free and anonymous, and the volunteers are all men who have been affected by the disease themselves.

For men who develop advanced prostate cancer, there are new treatments available too and that’s very positive news for them but the best way to deal with this disease is to catch it before it gets to that stage. Early detection is vital and that can be achieved with a simple blood test.

I had my surgery in September 2018, and I’ve just had my annual visit to my consultant in the Mater Hospital. Thankfully my blood results are fine so I’m good to go for another while. That might not have been the case If my GP had not suggested having these blood tests as soon as I hit 50 and I will be forever grateful that he did.

It won’t come as a great surprise to many that the Green Party Leader, Eamon Ryan is not my favourite politician. I do have some sympathy for him though because everyone who deals with him seems to agree that he is a nice, courteous man. A decent skin with good intentions apparently and I don’t doubt that, but God help us, he sure knows how to put his foot in it.

He made a complete hash of the turf saga. What started out as a plan to ban the use of turf to improve the quality of our air, ended up becoming an issue that threatened the stability of the Government. Add that to the car-pooling idea, the ‘grow your own salads in window boxes’ plan, and his recent reference to Russia as the USSR, which was disbanded 30 years ago, and you can see that it’s not all plain sailing in Eamon’s world.

Politicians get a lot of stick and I have often wondered why they bother. What it is that drives people to get involved in politics in the first place? Is it a genuine desire to improve society, a crusade for social justice or is it something more basic like a hunger for power or money? Or is it a craving for attention and the love of being in the spotlight?  

Whatever the reason, as far as I can see, it’s a time-consuming, thankless, stressful occupation with no job security, very little downtime and no privacy. But there are many who disagree and find political life totally absorbing and rewarding and they’re happy to make a career for themselves in that business.

That’s great because we need people like them. We might constantly complain about our TD’s, but we should give them some credit for putting themselves forward because if the country was full of people like me, Dail Eireann would be empty, and the country would be rudderless. OK, you might well ask how that would be any different to what’s happening now, but you know what I mean.

I never had much interest in politics when I was growing up. We weren’t a political family, so it came as no surprise to me when I was introduced to Gerry Collins in Abbeyfeale, Co. Limerick by a friend of mine in the seventies, that I had no idea who he was. I was a teenager, so his name meant nothing to me.

It became much more significant a few years later when I joined An Garda Siochana in 1979 and that same man became my new boss as Minister for Justice. That was the moment I regretted not being more switched on in Abbeyfeale. Thankfully, I had learned my lesson by the mid-eighties, so I was able to recognise the then Taoiseach, Charlie Haughey, when I met him.

I was stationed in Blarney at the time, and he had come to Cork and was staying overnight in Christy’s Hotel. On Sunday morning I was instructed to go to the hotel at 6am to relieve the guy who had been on duty there all night. The purpose of the duty was to provide low level security in the area while Haughey was in the building.

It was before 8am in the morning, when Mr. Haughey came downstairs accompanied by his driver. At that time the accommodation section of the hotel was in a separate part of the building to the bar and restaurant, so we had to exit the hotel and walk along the front of the building and go through the main door to gain access to the dining area.

When we got there, the driver opened the door to the dining room and as Mr. Haughey was about to enter, he turned to me and asked me if I had had any breakfast. I thanked him and told him I was fine, but he insisted I join them.

In the dining room, the hotel staff had a large table reserved for him with all the Sunday papers placed beside him. He got stuck into the papers and at 8am, the RTE news came on the radio. It was all about Charlie Haughey this and Charlie Haughey that, but he never lifted his head out of the paper. He must have heard his name being mentioned but he didn’t seem to have the slightest interest. Maybe he had heard it all before.

I was impressed that a man like that, who was obviously leading such a busy life, took the time to ask a young garda if he was hungry. History doesn’t remember Haughey too fondly for many reasons, but I remember him for the consideration he showed me.

I worked with other politicians too during my time in community policing and I witnessed the endless demands on their time. Most of them made a genuine effort but they also knew there were no guarantees. They could be out of a job on the whim of the electorate so it’s not the place to be if you like the idea of job security. Politics is an unpredictable business, as William Henry Harrison found out.

He was the 9^th US President and at his inauguration in 1841, he made a very long, speech. He delivered it outdoors on a freezing afternoon without a coat. Harrison was used to bad weather, having worked as a farmer and a soldier but it turned out he wasn’t immune to the cold.

The sixty-eight-year-old developed pneumonia. Doctors tried the usual remedies of the day including bleeding the president with leeches and trying to draw out the disease with heated cups, but Harrison died. He was just one month in office, making him the shortest-serving president in U.S. history and the first one to die in office.

Energy bills are going through the roof and all the signs seem to indicate we are in for a costly winter. The increases keep coming and we are being advised to be careful with our use of electricity and gas but that won’t be easy once the weather turns. The winter woollies could be worn out by the time Spring comes.

That’s not the end of it either. We might be colder outside too if the Government carry out their threat to take the second car off us.

Eamon Ryan, Minister for the Environment, is warning that we will face consequences if we don’t reach the target for reducing our carbon emissions by 2030. That worries me because we don’t have a good record for forward planning and reaching targets in this country, so the chances are, we are in for a fall.

Remember the late seventies, Cork city needed a solution to traffic congestion. That’s when the proposal for a tunnel crossing, now known as the Jack Lynch tunnel, was first mooted.

In 1985 a report on the proposed development was commissioned and submitted to the Minister of the Environment, Padraig Flynn in 1987. It sat on his desk for a bit and in 1989, the government recommended another feasibility study – which only confirmed the findings of the first one – and the plan was approved in 1992. The project was eventually completed in 1999, some twenty years later.

It was estimated at the time that 25,000 vehicles would use the tunnel daily with that figure rising to 40,000 within a few years. It did rise to 40,000 vehicles per day by 2005 and that had increased to 63,000 vehicles a day ten years later and is tipping 70,000 today. So, it took twenty years to come up with a plan that was redundant twenty-five years later.

In the late eighties, the Government sanctioned the building of three new Cork garda stations in Mayfield, Gurranabraher and Togher. They were supposedly designed to deal with modern needs yet within a few short years, all three were lacking in space. Rooms originally designed as storage areas were being turned into offices and parking was becoming an issue. Expensive refurbishment was required.

Anglesea Street Garda Station was designed as the new divisional headquarters, but it became unsuitable soon after it opened. The cells never housed a single prisoner but were used instead for storage. Office space was at a premium from the get-go and the parking facilities were totally unsuitable and couldn’t cater for the large number of official vehicles and private cars.

Government foresight was lacking elsewhere too.

When I retired in 2015, I bought a new Mazda CX5. I had never owned a diesel car before then, but I was advised by the Government that they were better for the environment. They even reduced the road tax to encourage us to get on board. I was delighted, so much so that I replaced it in 2018 with another one.

But as soon as I parked it in the driveway, Eamon Ryan was telling me to get rid of it. Suddenly, it was bad for the environment, and I was responsible polluting the atmosphere, melting ice caps and killing penguins. Then road tax went up again and now they say I’ll have to get rid of it in a few years. How did they not see that coming?

They are now warning that families could be forced to abandon their second car. Senior Government sources have said limiting the overall number of vehicles on roads and looking at the second family car would all be in the mix if the targets of carbon emissions are not reached. Call me an old cynic but based on previous experience, I’m not expecting good news.

I have little faith in Government long-term planning, so I don’t expect them to hit their carbon emission targets by 2030. I don’t expect people to give up their second car without a fight either though unless they provide an efficient public transport system in rural Ireland which is something Minister Ryan should be really targeting. He would get a lot of kudos and could make a significant impact on his beloved environment too but we’re a long way off that yet.

Almost three-quarters of all journeys in 2019 were made by car and according to Social Justice Ireland, the lack of reliable public transport in rural areas means that households are more reliant on their car to access basic services and to commute to and from work and school. This is contributing to the country’s carbon footprint, especially in rural areas, where we don’t have a viable alternative.

I would happily survive without a car, if it were possible. I would save a fortune for a start. I remember writing previously about the cost of owning a car and AA Ireland’s 2019 survey of motoring finances concluded that running a family car for a year costs €10,593.26.

That was three years ago so we can assume it has become even more expensive since then with the rising price of fuel, so who wouldn’t want to ditch the car? Through no fault of their own, most couples in rural Ireland need two cars, but now the Government is threatening to make their lives even more difficult by taking us back to the 1960’s.

When I was a child, we got luminous armbands to keep us safe as we walked home from school in the dark because there was no street lighting. We walked everywhere in all weathers. We had no central heating either, so we had lots of blankets on the bed at night to keep us warm, but I’m thankful for that experience. It was a good grounding for what lies ahead.

Civil wedding ceremonies are very common in Ireland now with venues varying from houses and hotels to gardens, forests, beaches, boats and whatever you’re having yourself. Solemnisers, or celebrants, are flat out and I’m all for it. I’ve been to a few of these, including my own daughter’s wedding recently and I must say like it. I like the more informal and casual format.

For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, a solemniser is a fancy name for a person licensed by the State to conduct weddings in Ireland. Only a registered solemniser can perform a legally binding civil wedding ceremony and the main difference between these weddings and the traditional Church weddings is that there is no religious aspect to the civil version.

I say traditional Church weddings, but civil wedding ceremonies have been around long before the Church got involved so they are not new. According to oldmooresalmanac.com, up to the middle of the sixteenth century, many couples chose to get married at home until the Catholic Church sought to make marriages more formal.

The Tametsi decree of the Council of Trent was introduced as the church fought for change. This decree stipulated that any marriage that took place outside the presence of a parish priest or his representative and two witnesses would be null and void. So, if you didn’t get married in a house of God by a priest, the marriage wasn’t legal.

Needless to say, the Irish largely ignored this for several more centuries, and carried on doing their own thing. Even up until the 1900s, a wedding at home was more common than a church wedding but eventually the Church won out and their wedding ceremonies became the norm. Now though, it seems we have gone full circle.

But, while we may have gone back to our roots, there’s nothing medieval about the cost of today’s nuptials. Wedding planners, make-up artists, videographers, lavish receptions and all the other accessories that go hand in hand with the special day don’t come cheap.

When you include bridal showers, overseas stag nights, hen nights, the day-after party and exotic honeymoons, it’s easy to see how the costs can add up and not only for the happy couple. The guests will also find a sizeable hole in their pocket when the dust has settled, and the confetti has been swept up.

It’s not only the money though. The time, effort, energy and stress that goes into planning a modern wedding is considerable. Every couple wants their wedding to be just right, and expectations are high. They’re under enormous pressure to produce the goods and create a magical event and I think we have lost the run of ourselves.

I spoke to a man recently who was married in 1957. His wife-to-be lived in a small house out in the country, and he told me that after the church ceremony, they headed back to her house for the reception.

Families from both sides were invited so there wasn’t a lot of room, but they managed. They were lucky the day was fine so they could go into the small garden. The food was prepared by relatives, and they were served in stages. The first ten guests were seated around the kitchen table to be fed and when they were finished, the next ten sat down and so on until everyone was sorted.

After that, the newlyweds were taken to Cork by taxi where they caught the ferry to Swansea and the train to London for a short honeymoon. That man is in his nineties now but still remembers that day fondly so it can’t have been all that bad.

The parents of a friend of mine got married in 1961 and after the ceremony, they adjourned to a hotel across the road from the church for the reception. It was called the wedding breakfast then and I think that had something to do with the fact that it was the brides first meal as a newly married woman.

Anyway, they were part of the farming community and had busy lives as did many of the guests. After the breakfast they chatted for a while and by lunchtime, they were back working on their farms again. They were more practical back then and they had some good ideas too.

The bride’s wedding dress was much more sensible for a start, just a fancier version of an everyday dress. In fact, women wore outfits that they could wear again as their Sunday best. Some made dresses that could easily be altered so they could be used for other life events.

The guests on the other hand just turned up in their normal everyday clothes. Even as late as the 1930s, a couple getting married were photographed in their wedding clothes, but guests looked like they were off to the market.

The wedding cake was usually, a currant loaf, with the bride getting the first slice. Tipsy cake, a sponge cake soaked in sherry or whatever alcohol was available, was also common and young unmarried maidens would put a sliver of the wedding cake under their pillows to induce intense dreams about their future husband.

In the nineteenth century, a few days before the wedding, the bride’s family would invite the groom over for dinner. There, they would cook a goose in his honour and while waiting for the dinner they would sign contracts and land rights that would bind the two together. Once the goose was cooked, it signified the solidification of the groom’s decision to marry the bride.

There was no turning back after that which is probably where we get the saying ‘his goose is cooked.’ I can’t see us returning to those days, but maybe we could find a reasonable compromise.