It Occurs To Me: Jack Cooney and Kilcar

I was delighted to run into Jack Cooney last weekend, along with son Brian, and he was fulsome in his praise of the CLG Cill Chartha centenary commemorations. 

Jack’s wife, Elaine Byrne is from Doonin in Kilcar and it’s long been his favourite holiday destination. 

“I love the place, the people and the wonderful characters,” he told me. Jack is not only a former footballing great but won the inaugural Tailteann Cup  with Westmeath. Back in 2015, when he was initially passed over for the Lake County job, he joined Rory Gallagher's backroom team in Donegal.

The accompanying photo (courtesy of Charlie O’Donnell) shows GAA President Jarlath Burns with Ian Hegarty and family, who managed the great 1980 Kilcar team, winners of the Donegal Senior County Championship.

GAA President Jarlath Burns with Ian Hegarty and family

A member of Páidí Ó Sé’s backroom team when Westmeath enjoyed Leinster SFC success in 2004, Jack Cooney also managed Rhode (Offaly), Newbridge (Kildare) and his home club Coralstown/Kinnegad. It’s the latter club that his son Brían plays for,  and what a player he is. In May this year in the Leinster U-20 Championship game against Longford, he scored a hat-trick of goals, Back in 2018, Brían also achieved a remarkable feat when he won his fourth Westmeath Feile Peil na nOg medal in-a-row. 

His dad, Jack, now has a full-time role in Croke Park as a National Player Development Lead, and he’s thrilled at the impact that Jarlath Burns has made there in such a short time. He’s a delightful man to meet, open and friendly, and we enjoyed a good laugh as we swapped stories about some of the aforementioned characters. 

                                        Dial 999 or fill a form?

I listened with great interest to a news item about a new method of contacting An Garda Síochána in the event of a crime, accident or traffic incident. 

Like many drivers, I’m reluctant to ring 999 unless I witness something life threatening, but have long wondered…where’s the alternative? If you don’t have an in-car hands free phone, do you pull into the hard shoulder (if there is one!) and ring the local Garda station (if you can locate a number)? I witness at least three or four incidents of lunacy on the roads each week, but the problem with this new ‘innovative’ scheme, is that you have to go online, rather than having an immediate text that you could send a car registration number to. When you go online, this is what you see: 

“This form should not be used in emergencies.

This form should be used for incidents that do not require an immediate Garda or Emergency Services response, such as:

A danger to life

Use, or immediate threat of use, or risk, of violence

Serious injury to a person and/or serious damage to property

Crime in progress or about to happen

An offender still at the scene or has just left the scene

Serious public disorder occurring or about to occur

A fatal traffic collision or serious injury collision

Video/photographic evidence cannot be uploaded to this page. When asked, you can hand over any video evidence you may have to a member of An Garda Síochána. You will be required to make a statement and may be required to attend Court to give evidence. You will receive an email containing a reference number for your records.” 

You then proceed to fill the page. 

Would it be remiss of me to ponder? Surely, the horse will long have bolted by the time each i is dotted and each t crossed? I’ve long been a critic of the modern method of customer service where you can’t speak to a human being but deal with some unknown ‘person’ on a website. I wish it well, but I’m not optimistic. 

                                       An alternative to an Olympic medal

For those non medal winning athletes- particularly those who came fourth - and made us so proud to be Irish, wouldn’t it be lovely to reward them as a nation. Perhaps a commemorative medal for their participation and achievements and awarded at a big ceremony in the Phoenix Park? Watching Charlene Mawdsley in tears made me realise how the homecoming without a medal could be quite an empty experience, so an alternative gesture might give them some measure of solace. 

                                                Banning the booze

Hearing some clown a while back saying that twenty years after we managed to ban smoking in the general workplace, enclosed public places, restaurants, bars, education facilities, healthcare facilities and public transport, we should now do the same with alcohol, I was reminded of many instances of buck-eejitry because of drink.

In the House of Commons in July 1905 Irish Nationalist MPs were seething about  the Drunkenness (Ireland) Bill , particularly the MP for South Louth, Joseph Nolan, who condemned as “uncalled for, ill-considered, mischievous in its provisions, and needlessly offensive to every Irishman who had any regard for the fair fame of his country.” 

Nolan took issue with the idea that Ireland was a special case, with a uniquely drunk-enough population to require its own measures, “as if drunkenness were more prevalent there than in England, Scotland or Wales”.

In 1920, Prohibition was introduced - after a massive propaganda campaign by the Temperance Movement - in the USA and it was a disaster. Crime increased because of ‘rum-running’ and bootlegging wars, while the likes of Al Capone became household names.

In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge’s administration mandated that manufacturers add even more dangerous chemicals to their industrial products — substances such as gasoline, formaldehyde, and the easily lethal methanol — to dissuade the underground industries and their customers.The consequences were immediate — and in many cases, fatal. Consumption of alcohol continued despite fear of the additives, and some estimates claim the chemical additions caused around 10,000 deaths in the US. Public health officials, including New York medical examiner Charles Norris, lambasted the move. Eventually, the official end of the program came with the repeal of the 18th Amendment in December 1933, marking the end of Prohibition. 

It’s some sixty years ago, outside Logue’s Pub in Carrigart, when my father was trying to assist a man the worse for wear during Lent, that he was informed, by way of excuse…”Normally, I don’t drink, but when I drink, I don't drink normally!”

                                      Donald and Hannibal

One of the few true utterances from Donald Trump recently was this one: “The fake news will say, ‘Trump is rambling’. No, it's genius what I'm doing up here, but nobody understands.” Ha Ha, you got that right, Donald! 

On the other hand, it’s no wonder many of the far-right Neanderthals in Ireland and the UK support him when he comes out with gibberish like this: “Everybody I speak to says how horrible it is. [There are] millions of people arriving from places unknown, from countries unknown. We have languages coming into our country, nobody that speaks those languages. They're truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.” This from the King of Unintelligibility who said at a rally: “Has anyone ever seen The Silence of the Lambs? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He's a wonderful man. He often times would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? ‘Excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner,’ as this poor doctor walked by. ‘I'm about to have a friend for dinner’. But Hannibal Lecter. Congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter.

That's Silence Of The Lambs; that's Hannibal Lecter. Did you ever hear of Hannibal Lecter? They're being dropped into our country. Hannibal Lecter is coming in. Hannibal Lecter, how great an actor was he?”

He reminds me of an old smoker of Mick McQuaid plug tobacco, who once said of a neighbour:“There’s not enough there between the two ears that would fill a pipe!”