A month ago we told you about Ciarán Cannon's epic one-day cycle from Mizen Head to Malin Head.
The Fine Gael TD for Galway East completed his 575.55km trip from the bottom to the top of the country in 23 hours and 23 minutes as part of a fundraiser for Hand in Hand, a national charity which supports families affected by childhood cancer.
The former minister of State isn't the type to let the grass grow under his pedals and two weeks later he was in the saddle again for another charity cycle. This time it was a trip across his native county from Clifden in the west to Eyrecourt in the east.
The event was on Saturday, July 3rd so Ciarán decided to "hop on the bike" early in the evening on the Friday and spin over to friends in Clifden to be ready for the 8am start. As he was going through the village of Moycullen he was struck by an oncoming vehicle swinging into a minor road.
“An SUV... flung me up in the air, I landed on the road, smashed my knee to bits. I had surgery the next morning so instead of cycling the width of Galway on Saturday I was in an operating theatre getting my knee put back together again.”
The vehicle shattered his right knee, he went over the bonnet and landed smack in the middle of the road. The accident happened at The Forge pub and the people dining outside came to his assistance and called an ambulance.
“They were bloody brilliant in University Hospital Galway. I was put in a cast on Friday night and had the operation on Saturday. I won’t be able to put any weight on the knee now for three months, but while it’s a serious injury I know it could have been far worse.”
Had Ciarán been able to get to Clifden for the 160km trip to Eyrecourt, the funds raised would have gone to East Galway and Midlands Cancer Support. But all is not lost, people who want to support this excellent service can donate online via the Eyrecourt to Clifden Cycle page on GoFundMe.
And with an eye to the joke about the first thing cycling enthusiasts ask after one of their own has been in a crash, deputy Cannon confirms: “There isn’t a scratch on the bike”.
[...] Opposition politicians insinuating that the country is just a few guillotined laws away from totalitarian rule was way over the top for measures which are temporary
Those inconvenient and confusing rules brought in by the Government to get the beleaguered hospitality industry going again sparked paroxysms of outrage in the Dáil and beyond this week. It wasn’t the smoothest handling of a rapidly changing and difficult situation by the Coalition and it is difficult to fathom some of the decisions recommended by the public health experts and voted through on Wednesday night.
But the bandying about of terms such as “medical apartheid” and “throwing democracy out the window” along with opposition politicians insinuating that the country is just a few guillotined laws away from totalitarian rule was way over the top for measures which are temporary (the vaccinations are flying) and relate to the hardly life or death circumstances of being allowed inside for a nice meal or a clatter of pints.
Is the situation a bit of a mess? Yes. Is it ideal? No.
But a touch of perspective wouldn’t have gone amiss in the Dáil this week.
In years to come, children will look to their elders and ask in wonderment: “Granny, what did you do during the Great Segregation, when you weren’t able to drink indoors in the pub for a few weeks and the jackboot of fascism was on your neck until you got the vaccination?”
“Granda, tell us again about the time you were arrested and tortured and detained in solitary confinement for 10 years for refusing to bow to the evil dictators who forced you to eat tapas outside under patio heaters and tried to inject you with poison against your will?”
In the Seanad on Friday, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly addressed doubts raised that publicans will be able to enforce the new admission system.
In the past, some pubs “wouldn’t let you in if they didn’t like your shoes” he pointed out.
“They could refuse you admission on nothing more than, ‘look at the head on you’.”
He also tackled charges that the short-term measures are discriminatory.
“No. We are not discriminating against people. We are differentiating.”
He cited international travel requirements, the ban on serving alcohol to people under 18 and the smoking ban. “Is that discriminatory? No. It’s a public health measure to keep people safe.”
And what about when the over 70s were asked to self-isolate on public health grounds. “I never heard one voice say: that’s discriminatory and now the entire country has to cocoon.”
‘Look up the history’
There was a lot of confusion over who said what this week when the Rural Independent Group's Mattie McGrath was severely criticised by the Taoiseach and TDs on all sides of the House for remarks likening the vaccination regime and indoor dining rules to Nazi Germany. The Tipperary TD was also condemned for comments he made on the plinth drawing a parallel between the legislation and the forcing of Jews during the second World War to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing.
“It’s not on” the Taoiseach told him on Tuesday, pulling him up over his use of the words “totalitarianism” and “authoritarianism” and his reference to 1930s Germany. “Look up the history. Do you understand what the Holocaust was?”
McGrath immediately took umbrage, demanding an apology from the Taoiseach for falsely accusing him of using the word “Holocaust”. But, of course, he didn’t. This didn’t stop the TD going in the next day and angrily calling for the Dáil record to be corrected. But there is nothing to correct.
On the plinth, he was asked straight out if he was comparing giving people the Covid-19 vaccine to the Holocaust.
This is what he said: “I am, I am comparing it, yeah. So it’s for me to compare and for anyone else to read history [to] make their own decisions on it.”
On Wednesday, he complained of media outlets trying to damage his credibility and there was a story “that I uttered some words”. One of them starts with an “a”, he said. “And I never said those words anywhere in my life. I would not even repeat the words here.”
But what was it? Apartheid? (Couldn’t be, because he accused the Government of medical apartheid.) Authoritarian? (Nope, he’s used that too.)
As for “nazism”. “I never uttered that word, not here or anywhere else” insisted Mattie. Here he is on April 28th in the Dáil, talking about the public health restrictions: “Are we going back to the time of Hitler and the Nazis? What the hell is going on here?”
No shame.
Wedding news
Congratulations to Fianna Fáil Minister of State Robert Troy, who married the love of his life, Aideen Ginnell, at a ceremony on Thursday in the Franciscan Friary in Multyfarnham.
In other, less fraught, political circumstances, Robert might have been able to get a voting “pair” from one of his opposition counterparts and avoided Wednesday night’s controversial vote on the new Covid-19 rules. But instead he had to attend the votes which went on very late into the night.
But he was in Westmeath the next morning, looking very dapper ahead of his big day.
After the wedding, the couple held a reception for 50 guests in Ballymagarvey Village in Co Meath. Robert, who is junior minister for trade and employment says he will be back at his desk on Monday, and the couple plan to head down the country later in the week for a short holiday.
His wife Aideen is communications director with Cicero/amo consultants and she comes from good Fianna Fáil stock. She is the grandniece of Laurence Ginnell, former MP for Longford Westmeath and a founding member of the party.
Congratulations also to Labour Senator Annie Hoey, who married Dan Waugh on Friday at a civil ceremony in Cork, having postponed their nuptials four times because of a series of setbacks, mainly to do with pandemic restrictions.
Cop yourself on
After Mattie McGrath’s comments, Minister of State Patrick O’Donovan waded into the row on Wednesday morning.
He tweeted that he began following the Auschwitz Museum's Twitter account a number of months ago and its stories of ordinary people from across Europe who were slaughtered by the Nazi regime. "The stories are simple but always force me to stop and think. They could be my family."
The Fine Gael TD for Limerick County encouraged people, "especially colleagues" in Leinster House, to follow the museum's social media stream. "Use of language around this time in Europe's history can cause so much hurt and pain and this will help people to think before they speak in future."
Wise words there from the junior minister in the Department of Public Expenditure.
Mind you, he forgot to stick by them three weeks ago during a lively spat on Limerick's Live 95fm with the Sinn Féin TD for Limerick City, Maurice Quinlivan. The two politicians squared up to each other in a robust exchange of views after most Sinn Féin TDs left the Dáil chamber before votes on renewing the powers of the Special Criminal Court were taken.
Patrick was incensed, describing the actions of Sinn Féin as “frightening”.
The vote was to underpin the use of the court to prosecute crime gangs and terrorists who could intimidate jurors and "then these people go into Dáil Éireann yesterday and walk out of our democratically elected parliament" he thundered. "Now they can use all the TikTok, Instagram and Twitter in the world, but they have not changed, and the people of Ireland and the people of Limerick need to wake up. The reality is we are sliding into a quasi Germany of 193O and we are in a very dangerous, precarious position."
Maurice, who denied there was a walkout, said a review of the non-jury court chaired by a former High Court judge is underway and his party was awaiting its outcome.
“That doesn’t hide the fact that there was a walkout of a democratically elected party. It was a 1930s-style protest reminiscent of what happened in Germany in the 1930s. That’s what happened last night.”
“Cop yourself on, now, Patrick,” retorted Maurice.
