Author: Michael Kirke

Michael Kirke was born in Co. Donegal and attended St. Eunan’s College in Letterkenny, 1957-1962. In 1966 he graduated from University College Dublin (History and Politics). In 1966 he began working on the editorial desk of The Evening Press in Dublin and in 1968 went to the newsroom of the Irish Press group of newspapers – contributing news and features to the group’s three titles, The Irish Press (morning paper), The Evening Press and The Sunday Press. In 1969 he went to Belfast and covered the initial unravelling of the Unionist hegemony in the province. Later that year he became the group’s education specialist. In 1973 took leave of absence to pursue postgraduate studies in education in Trinity College Dublin where he graduated in 1976. In 1978 he left journalism and moved into teaching. In 1981 was appointed headmaster of Rockbrook Park School in Dublin (www.rockbrook.ie). In 1994 resigned from that post and moved to live in the West of Ireland (Galway) where he began working part-time in media again. He is now back in Dublin working, among other things, as a freelance writer. His main interests are in political, cultural and educational affairs – as well as issues related to religious faith.

Options now for Ireland’s defenders of human life?

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment
Senator Ronan Mullen

The defenders of children in the womb are still reeling in Ireland today after the majority of their political representatives have clearly abandoned them and are proceeding with legislation which will legalise the killing of the unborn in Ireland for the first time.

They are now looking at what options remain to them to defend those whom they see as the most defenceless, children awaiting birth – those whom the pro-abortion camp refuses to call human at all and insistently and disparagingly refer to as simply “ fetuses”.

The first option is the intensification of lobbying of the members of the Oireachtas (the two houses of the Irish parliament). But other options are also on the agenda. Earlier this year between 25 and 30 thousand pro-life people from all over the island gathered at the parliament building to demand that the majority party in the Coalition Government keep its election promise not to legislate for abortion. That party is now seen as having blatantly has broken that promise. No one doubts that it did so in order stay in power by keeping faith on the deal it made with its socialist partners in Government.

There will be more street demonstrations between now and the time this legislation comes before the two houses for debate. Unless there is a major shift in the balance of support for it within the parties the bill will become law in the summer.

What options exist after that? Well they can launch a major campaign for the repeal of the legislation leading up to the next general election. “Repeal” is a word with enormous historic significance in Irish history. For the decades stretching from the 1830s up to the final violent struggle for Irish independence from the United Kingdom beginning in 1916, repeal of the Act which held that union together was the centrepiece of all Irish politics. No Irish politician would want to be seen facing down a new Repeal Movement of the scale and with the emotional potential which this one would have.

For those for whom this is a matter of faith as well as a matter of moral social policy in purely human terms, people from all over Ireland are gathering for a Vigil for Life in Knock, Co Mayo tomorrow (Saturday, 4th May). It will be the first major demonstration on the issue since the Government’s approval on Tuesday. Knock is the Irish national shrine of the Blessed Virgin and ironically is situated on the home turf of the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny. Not many expect to see him there tomorrow, however.

The language of opposition to this proposed legislation is already gathering momentum and strength. Senator Ronan Mullen, independent of parties, said yesterday that It is clear already that the Taoiseach and his Government are proposing a dangerous and destructive thing – the legalization of abortion on the ground of threatened suicide. There is no credible evidence that abortion is any kind of treatment for suicidal ideation in women. We know the consequences for the unborn child. And we know what this kind of legislation has started elsewhere.

Legislating for abortion on the suicide ground, he explained, is not required by the European Court judgment. This was a Court ruling in 2010 which many see as fig-leaf being disingenuously used by the government to justify the pursuit of this legislation forced by the socialists on the major party as a condition for entering government with them. The European Court simply required that the Irish government would “clarify” the legal situation for women with regard to its abortion laws. We could, Senator Mullen said, provide the necessary clarity by introducing guidelines which would protect women in pregnancy by re-affirming that they receive all necessary life saving treatments in pregnancy and requiring that we also exercise a duty of care towards the unborn.

Ireland has one of the best records in the world when it comes to a question of maternal health.

He also clarified that legislation for abortion on the suicide ground is not required by the X-case. When he was Taoiseach, John Bruton said he would not introduce legislation in line with the X-case because that would have the effect of bringing abortion into Ireland. The Oireachtas has the prerogative of not legislating for a Supreme Court decision if it believes it would be harmful to do so. Mr. Bruton, who was leader of the same party as the current Taoiseach, spoke out last weekend in opposition to this proposed legislation.

Mullen went on to say that this legislation will not be about ‘life-saving’ treatment but, in fact, the opposite. The Government has produced no evidence to show that abortion is ever beneficial in the treatment of the mental health of women. We know from the latest review of the evidence (Fergusson et al.) that abortion is not associated with any mental health benefit for women. In fact, it is associated with a low to moderate increased risk for women’s mental health. And, of course, we know a child always dies. So it is dishonest to pretend that this proposal is about saving life.

That is why over 100 psychiatrists last week signaled their opposition to being involved in certifying women as needing abortion to save their lives because this is not evidence-based medicine. International experience shows that provision for abortion on the mental health ground will be abused. It is hard to see how things could be different in Ireland, given the nature of what is proposed today.

The big question for many is of course who will choose the medical team to assess whether or not an abortion is “warranted”. Everyone in Ireland knows that in Britain two doctors are needed to sign off for abortions and that in many cases this is done without any scrutiny. Last year the Daily Telegraph uncovered widespread and totally unscrupulous ethical behaviour by doctors.

The third path being mulled over by activists defending life is the constitutional one. Ironically just this week a judgement was handed down by the Irish Supreme Court which some think has a bearing on the proposed legislation.

In a case where a woman was seeking confirmation of constitutional right to commit suicide – and be assisted in doing that by her husband – the Supreme Court held that there is no constitutional right to commit suicide or to arrange for the determination of one’s life at a time of one’s choosing. This decision follows from the constitutional obligation to respect life and to refrain from taking away the life of another.

The Court rejected the ‘autonomy’ argument to the contrary, ruling that  “It is also possible to construct a libertarian argument that the State is not entitled to interfere with the decisions made by a person in respect of his or her own life up to and including a decision to terminate it. However, it is not possible to discern support for such a theory in the provisions of the Constitution, without imposing upon it a philosophy and values not detectable from it.”

Pro life legal experts are now suggesting that if the mother of an unborn child does not have a constitutional right to willfully end her own life, a fortiori she can have no constitutional right to take away the life of her unborn child, or to obtain assistance in that regard.

There are some who think that contradictions are inherent here between two Supreme Court rulings and that in this they may find an Achilles’ heel in the proposed legislation to render it null and void should it get into the statute books.

One way or another Ireland is heading into protracted political and constitutional warfare which may wreak havoc on more than a few political careers and reputations. This has even the potential to radically shake up the tired old political landscape, possibly leaving Ireland with a party structure reflecting the real divisions of opinion in the country. “They are all the same” is the helpless cry of many Irish electors going to the polls in recent years – followed by “one is worse than the other but I can’t trust any of them”. Apart from the tragedy of the unborn which this current debacle represents, there is for many the further erosion of all trust in the political class.

On the personal level Enda Kenny is already smarting under his newly earned title as “the abortion Taoiseach”. The long culture war ahead for the life of the unborn in Ireland will only serve to harden it for posterity. For a large segment of Irish people Kenny is now joining Quisling, Petain and some others in history’s Hall of Infamy.

An immodest, “dangerous” and deeply “dishonest” proposal

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters1 Comment
Ireland’s Pro Life civil rights politics back on the streets?

Following the Irish Government’s publication last night of the Heads of the Bill – preliminary draft for legislation – on abortion, the country’s Pro Life Campaign has dismissed the Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s reassurances that the law will be restrictive.

The Bill provides for abortion on the ground of threatened suicide with three doctors certifying the abortion.

Cora Sherlock, Deputy Chairperson of the Ireland’s Pro Life Campaign reminded the Campaign’s followers this morning that it was a very sad day  for her country. “For the first time an Irish Government has launched a proposal to introduce abortion.”

But, rallying the Campaign’s troops, she reminded them that the law had not yet been passed. “They haven’t succeeded yet. And so our job remains the same. Together we must redouble our efforts, never lose heart and continue our engagement with politicians, the media and the wider public. We will be dignified, respectful but insistent at all times.

“On days like this, we remember the nobility of the pro-life cause. There will be irritants, provocations and frustrations. But the more dignified and persistent we are in these days, the more our cause will benefit into the future.

“Don’t be disheartened. Each of us has a part to play. Today is the first day of a new and sustained fight on behalf of the unborn and their mothers.”

Commenting on the release of the Heads of the Bill, Caroline Simons of the Pro Life Campaign said:

“The Taoiseach and Minister Reilly have been talking up the proposal as very restrictive. But, in reality, these reassuring noises are empty and misleading. What matters is what’s contained in the Bill and what’s in the Bill is dangerous. For the first time an Irish government is proposing to introduce a law that provides for the direct intentional targeting of the life of the unborn child.

“Talk of the legislation being ‘life-saving’ is simply dishonest. There is no evidence that abortion ever helps women’s mental health and in fact it may damage women. It’s astounding that the Fine Gael leadership has caved in to Labour, allowing ideology to win out over evidence.

“The two-panel six-doctor proposal for signing off on abortions is utter nonsense. All it takes is three pro-choice doctors to sign off on every request and all restrictiveness is gone. It is an insult to women and their unborn babies to pretend that it could operate in an evidence-based manner.

“The Government has claimed all along that there is no option but to legislate. This is untrue. If the Government were really concerned about protecting women’s lives and respecting the unborn, we would have appropriate guidelines drawn up to assist doctors in various cases. The law already protects good medicine and life-saving treatments.

“If the Government continues to press ahead with the proposed legislation, we cannot continue to airbrush the reality of what abortion entails in countries where it is legal. There has been a huge spotlight on Ireland’s abortion laws but the public deserves to know what’s going on in other countries before any final decision is taken on the matter.”

It is “a debate about the humanity of the unborn child”

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

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If only Eamon Gilmore, Enda Kenny and company would acknowledge some of these facts and their relevance to the treachrous path they are trying to lead Ireland along.

The New York Times reports on the Gosnell trial summing up:

PHILADELPHIA — They are known as Baby Boy A, Baby C, Baby D and Baby E, all of whom prosecutors call murdered children and the defense calls aborted fetuses — the very difference in language encapsulating why anti-abortion advocates are so passionate about drawing attention to the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, which wrapped up here on Monday with summations by both sides.
To anti-abortion leaders, the accounts have the power to break through decades of hardened positions in the abortion wars, not just because of the graphic details but because they raise the philosophical issue of why an abortion procedure performed in utero is legal, but a similar act a few minutes later, outside the womb, is considered homicide.
The distinction “is maybe a 15-minute or half-hour time frame and 10 inches of physical space,” said Michael Geer, the president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, an anti-abortion group. “I think it’s going to resurrect a debate about the humanity of the unborn child.”

My goodness!

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters1 Comment

Sssh! The Week’s daily briefing reports:
OBAMA: MORE GOLF THAN ECONOMICS
US President Barack Obama has spent almost 1,000 hours on holiday and playing golf since he took office in January 2009 but has spent less than half that amount of time, 474.4 hours, in meetings about the economy. The claim comes in a report from the Government Accountability Institute, based on analysis of the presidential diary and newspaper reports.

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The most lethal euphemism of all?

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Is this the most lethal euphemism of all? We have had ethnic “cleansing”, a clinical-sounding term for numerous and variously bloody instances of forced migration. We have had “cultural revolution” for mindless communist barbarities. We have even the benign-sounding term “re-education” veiling the gulags of soviet Russia. There was, of course – until now – the daddy of them all: the “final solution” covering the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish people.

But how about “planned parenthood”? We are fast reaching a stage where that very term, suggesting an acute sense of responsibility and connected with the most elemental and sublime of all human experiences, must send a shiver through us. But despite the horrendous evidence from the Gosnell trial in Philadephia, illustrating just the tip of the iceberg of human depravity which the abortion industry represents, and industry which is itself the very flagship of Planned Parenthood, we have the leader of the “free” world championing this “cause”.

This industrial health-service complex – which has nothing to do with health and less to do with service –  has accounted for the deaths of millions and millions of human beings, children and women, across the world in the past 50 years. You can take any approach to statistics you like and the figures will still come out showing that this is the single greatest human disaster that the world has ever seen. Don’t get distracted by the statistics but just for the record, one source cites

approximately 42 million abortions occurring every year worldwide. The same source calculates that abortion killed 73 times more Americans than died in battle in their last 12 wars combined.

There seems to be little doubt that the local Planned Parenthood group had been aware of complaints about what Dr. Gosnell was up to but did not intervene. The Philadelphia Daily News quoted the local group’s leader as saying that women had complained to the group about conditions at Dr. Gosnell’s clinic, and that the group would encourage them to report their complaints to the health department. That’s responsibility?

In the context of Obama’s shameless support for Planned Parenthood, show most recently by his going out of his way to celebrate with them last week, Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, an antiabortion group said: “President Obama blatantly ignored this inconvenient truth about the abortion industry’s horrific lack of oversight and disparaged the pro-life advocates who wake up each morning with the goal of saving the lives of unborn children and women from the pain of abortion,” said.

Mr. Obama at the dinner last week ignored the Gosnell case but condemned lawmakers who have targeted Planned Parenthood. “When politicians try to turn Planned Parenthood into a punching bag, they’re not just talking about you, they’re talking about the millions of women who you serve,” he told the group’s gathering, at a Washington hotel. “And when they talk about cutting off your funding, let’s be clear they’re talking about telling many of those women you’re on your own.”

He pledged his loyalty to the group. “You’ve also got a president,” he said, “who’s going to be right here with you fighting every step of the way.” Now they are chilling words.

Matt Barber in his TownHall.com column pulls no punches when he confronts these horrors.

 I mean, why are we surprised that an abortionist and his staff would, behind the walls of an always-lethal abortion clinic, commit one of the most horrific serial killings in American history? What did you think abortionists do, heal people?

 Why are we taken aback that there was no oversight, no regulation, or that Planned Parenthood, though privy to the clinic’s filthy, medieval conditions, refused to report it to the Department of Health? After all, Planned Parenthood, Barack Obama and the DNC have vehemently opposed all laws – such as those in Virginia, Mississippi and elsewhere – designed to prevent exactly the same kind of squalid conditions found in Gosnell’s clinic (and others), laws that simply direct abortion mills to meet the same minimal safety standards required of all other medical facilities.

 You didn’t really buy that whole “women’s health” nonsense, did you?

 We live in bewildering times. The President of the United States won his second term by a slender enough margin of the popular vote. But he is not just the President of the United States. He is the most powerful man in the world and for the old West he is effectively the unelected primus inter not-so-pares. As we were reminded during his last election campaign, had the peoples of Europe had a vote in  that election he would have won by a landslide.  Frightening.

Open letter to Irish public representatives opposing threatened abortion law

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Congratulations to all Irish parliamentary deputies and senators taking a stand against the legislation threatening to bring abortion on demand into Ireland. The stand of some is reported in this morning’s Irish Times.
Those who say that the legislation which is being prepared is not going to lead to a very liberal abortion law in this country in due course are either burying their heads in the sand or are being disingenuous. They are ignoring the overwhelming evidence of history from the past 50 years.
What those of you who are opposing this legislation as it is currently drafted are doing is to my mind the first example of principled and even heroic political action that I have seen in this country for a long time.
Consensus politics has a place in a political system but where consensus trumps values and principles of life and human dignity then we are on a short path to corruption.

Spinning out of control

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This week The Thirsty Gargoyle’s blog turned its attention to the utterly despicable manipulation of public opinion in which the sad case of Savita Halappanavar has become mired. Not having got the verdict they wanted from the inquest into her death the abortion campaigners – ably abetted by a national and international media which long ago made up their minds that she died because a hospital refused to abort her baby – they are by-passing the verdict and spinning out the very peculiar evidence given by a pro-abortion doctor.

The Gargoyle writes:

It’s astonishing to look at the reaction of so many people in Ireland to the recent inquest into the death last October of Savita Halappanavar in Galway, and in particular at how so much attention is being paid to Dr Peter Boylan, erstwhile master of the National Maternity Hospital, that the inquest seems to be being rewritten in the popular mind.

Everyone seems aware of what Dr Boylan said at the inquest, but in directing the jury towards its verdict, the coroner didn’t so much as acknowledge Boylan’s claim that Savita would have survived if the law permitted doctors to terminate pregnancy in order to pre-empt hypothetical risks rather than real ones.

The jury could, of course, have disregarded the coroner’s advice and given a narrative verdict which would have given due weight to Dr Boylan’s belief that the law was the problem. Instead it opted for a verdict of medical misadventure, accepting the coroner’s recommendations, the emphasis of which was almost wholly on procedures and systems failures, with the sole reference to terminations being a recommendation that the Medical Board and An Bord Altranais should have a common, clear, and explicit set of guidelines for how situations such as Savita’s should be handled. It looks, in truth, as though the inquest implicitly rejected Boylan’s analysis.

The official response from Galway University Hospital seems to recognise this, with lots of browbeating about systems failures and not a word said about the law putting Galway’s staff in an impossible position.

If the inquest implicitly rejected Boylan’s analysis, Savita’s widower Praveen seems to have gone rather further, going so far as to cast aspersions on Boylan’s integrity.

Read the rest of The Thirsty Gargoyle’s dissection – with access to all the relevant links – of this shameless and sinister plot to subvert Ireland’s Constitution.

Well, well, well! Things are moving very fast

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

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Four militants belonging to FEMEN — a Ukraine-based “feminist” group which organizes topless protests at people and things they dislike — yesterday evening attacked the Archbishop of Malines-Brussels, Andre-Joseph Leonard, as he took part in a university debate on (of all subjects) freedom of speech and blasphemy.

Professor Guy Haarscher, who was debating the archbishop, said afterwards:

What most shocked me was the attitude of the photojournalists present. When we arrived in the hall, we were both surprised by the number of photographers — about a dozen of them. Obviously they photographed the whole scene, then left with the Femen [militants]. We must therefore deplore this event as something concocted between the Femen [militants] and the photographers to sell pictures. The proof was that very shortly afterwards the pictures were on Lalibre.be and other sites.

Read the full account from Catholic Voices here

About a boy…climbing mountains

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters2 Comments

Donal Walsh is a young Irish boy living in County Kerry, one of the most beautiful places on this earth. He came to national prominence this Spring when a letter he wrote made a plea for an end to what has all the appearances of a suicide epidemic among young Irish people. Donal is 16. At 12, he was diagnosed with cancer. This is his letter:

A few months left, he said. There it was; I was given a timeline on the rest of my life. No choice, no say, no matter. It was given to me as easy as dinner.

 I couldn’t believe it, that all I had was 16 years here, and soon I began to pay attention to every detail that was going on in this town.

 I realised that I was fighting for my life for the third time in four years and this time I have no hope. Yet still I hear of young people committing suicide and I’m sorry but it makes me feel nothing but anger.

 I feel angry that these people choose to take their lives, to ruin their families and to leave behind a mess that no one can clean up.

 Yet I am here with no choice, trying as best I can to prepare my family and friends for what’s about to come and leave as little a mess as possible.

 I know that most of these people could be going through financial despair and have other problems in life, but I am at the depths of despair and, believe me, there is a long way to go before you get to where I am.

 For these people, no matter how bad life gets, there are no reasons bad enough to make them do this; if they slept on it or looked for help they could find a solution, and they need to think of the consequences of what they are about to do.

 So please, as a 16-year-old who has no say in his death sentence, who has no choice in the pain he is about to cause and who would take any chance at even a few more months on this planet, appreciate what you have, know that there are always other options and help is always there.

 I’ve grown fully in both body and mind by climbing God’s mountains

 I live in a part of the world that is surrounded by mountains. I can’t turn my head without finding a bloody hill or mountain and I suppose those were God’s plans for me. To have me grow up around mountains and grow climbing a few too. And that’s exactly what I’ve done, I may have grown up in body around them but I’ve fully grown and matured in mind climbing his mountains.

 He’s had me fight cancer three times, face countless deaths and losses in my life, he’s had my childhood dreams taken off me but at the end of the day, he’s made me a man.

 I am always called brave, heroic, kind, genuine, honourable and so many other kind compliments, but I have to try and explain to everyone why I seem to reject them. I have never fought for anyone but myself, therefore I cannot be brave or heroic, I’ve only been kind because my religion has taught me so.

 What impact could I ever make on the world if I was fake or how could I ever be honourable if I was not honoured to be here.

 I am me. There is no other way of putting it, little old Donal Walsh from Tralee, one body, one mind with a few other cobwebs and tales thrown in.

 I’ve climbed God’s mountains, faced many struggles for my life and dealt with so much loss. And as much as I’d love to go around to every fool on this planet and open their eyes to the mountains that surround them in life, I can’t. But maybe if I shout from mine they’ll pay attention.

 If I start to accept these compliments, I’m afraid of what I’ll become. Will I be braver than YE? Will I be kinder than YE? More genuine than YE? Or more honourable than YE? Better than YE? No. I can never accept that there is a YE. We are all the same, we are all given one body, one mind. The only difference for me is that I’m looking from the mountain.

That was impressive enough. Then, two weeks ago Irish television took the story further and last Sunday a national newspaper took up his story and Irish people were able to learn something very special, not just about one special person, but also about themselves, about life, death, and above all about friendship, human and divine.

In the Sunday Independent, Donal told practically the whole story of his life from 12 years of age to the present day, of his battle with anger and disappointment, how he won his life back, and how he has faced his terminal illness.

Every day people say I’m brave, that I’m courageous and I hate that, he wrote. I’m just doing what I have to do to survive, to live another day.

 I had a friend, Stuart Mangan. He said he wasn’t brave because he didn’t have a choice. He didn’t have a choice to be paralysed but he chose to live every day of his life with a smile on his face and even though he knew he didn’t have long to live, he spent the time he had designing technology for people who would end up like him. That to me is brave and inspirational.

 The first time they told me, I was at home, I was on the phone to my friend. It was September 11, 2008, my mom came in, she didn’t have to say anything, I knew straight away what had happened. The test results were bad and the tumor was malignant. I hung up the phone without saying anything and I felt like throwing it at the wall. But to be honest, I didn’t know what it meant. I was 12, and all I cared about was playing sport. I knew it was bad but I didn’t understand the severity of it. I had cancer, a tumor that had grown on my right femur just above my knee and little did I know it would destroy parts of my life that I had never planned on letting go of.

The first step was chemo. Donal takes us through the months of treatment. We see his mind, his mentality evolving through those months – and his maturity unfolding.

They would save my life and nearly kill me but I was doing it. I wanted to live, to play for Munster, to travel the world, to raise children and die when I’m 100, not 12.

On June 1, 2009, Donal walked out of St John’s Ward in Dublin’s Children’s Hospital a happy boy. He had finished his last chemo and he promised he would never return as a patient.

Over the next few years he collected over €10,000 for the ward. “They looked after me and I promised myself that I was going to do everything I could to look after them. They were looking to renovate the ward for the first time since the Seventies so I had to help.”

It was a promise he was able to keep. The other promise was a different story. O February 15, 2012, he went for a chest X-ray and a CT scan of my chest. He describes how he and his father waited for the result.

 There was a bin next to me and tissues on the table. He came in and told us I had a tumor in my lung. It was back. My heart sank. My world fell apart again. I was angry. This was too much. I stood up and kicked the bin. I wanted to run. I fell to my knees in tears. I couldn’t handle it. He said I would be going for surgery the week after, on February 25.

The operation was successful but more chemo had to follow. This was the hardest part for him but now his resilience and courage were beginning to reveal themselves.

 I realised I was back to where I was three years ago, he wrote. It is unreal the support I am getting. He explained: I don’t take it seriously when I’m at home because if I do, my friends will and I don’t want them to worry about me. Cancer has already ruined my life so I’m not going to let it do anything to my friends.  It’s hard to call some of them ‘friends’, when they spend every day with you, they become family. So at home I’m Donal, but in hospital I’m sick and that’s the way it’s going to stay.

Even the focus of Donal’s anger is exceptional. He describes his return to Our Lady’s Hospital for his treatment:

I walked back into that ward with a sick feeling inside me, knowing what I was walking into. The ward hadn’t changed at all. The walls were the same, the curtains were the same, the airtight windows were the same and, of course, the same empty promises given to countless dying children by countless gentlemen in suits. It really does make me ashamed of my government when they can get wages in the hundreds of thousands annually, but when one of the most important children’s wards in Ireland, for some of the sickest kids in Ireland, has to rely on charitable donations to buy a bucket of paint and a brush. That is one of the sickest things I have ever come across in my short lifetime here.

Nor was his anger a futile emotion. As a result €50,000 was raised for the hospital in Dublin and another children’s charity. He also describes how in these months his friendships deepened.

During my three-week breaks, I would have spent most of the time recovering while my friends were at school. I had one friend who came around every day after school and made me smile. That was John. He visited me in hospital and made me laugh even though it hurt like hell. We ended up like brothers throughout it all. Then there’s Cormac, Hugh and James, my three best friends from school, they supported me through everything and visited me as much as they could while studying for their exams. I was also trying to study for my Junior Cert as best as I could but I could only make it into school for one week while I was at home. This made it difficult at times but I had huge support from my school and they helped me to do as much work as I could at home.

At the end of his second bout of treatment the time came for his scan. This took place on Friday June 15, 2012, his 16th birthday. The news was good.

I couldn’t believe it, that all I had thought over the last few weeks and all I had gone through over the past few months was over. I spent the summer travelling between Bantry and Tralee. I spent the time in Bantry with my cycling coach James Cleary. I returned to school in September and had gotten into a daily routine of an early start at seven to get my food ready for the day, go to school, go straight to the gym or go for a cycle which I had reached up to 60km at the time, come and study and then some weeknights coach youth rugby. My life seemed to be perfect. I had everything I ever wanted and it couldn’t have gone any better.

One day in September Donal had an accident on one of his cycling trips. He recovered from his injuries but when some pain persisted anxiety began to increase and when eventually he returned to Dublin for his check-up his worst suspicions were confirmed. Dr Capra, the oncologist gave him and his mother the news with these words: “We’ve been on this road too many times, eh?” That was it. My heart sank. I didn’t know whether to follow them to his office or run out the front door.

 We arrived home four hours later to a house full of support, everyone had come out. That week was a blur to me. After letting the news out that the cancer was back, the amount of support that I got was crazy, I didn’t need any of that chin-up bullshit, because I had all the positivity and strength and support I needed to get through this 10 times over but it still felt like a mountain I couldn’t climb, nonetheless God had given me hiking boots so I might as well start climbing.

 We were called up for scans the following Thursday. On the way home, I stopped in Portlaoise to meet with a prayer minister, John Delaney. He has been a very strong part of my faith and on that night we prayed together. I thought to myself that if this was what God wants me to do, if he wants me to fight cancer, if he wants me to be a symbol to other people, or if he just wants me to die then I guess I’ll strap up my hiking boots and get to the top of this mountain.

The scans now revealed that the condition was terminal. Donal remained calm. At the start of his school midterm-break, he asked his parents if he could go away on a break with his friends somewhere. They did. Then, as a family, they later went to Lourdes.

While I was there, I didn’t experience much healing but I went for confession and met a South African priest. I asked him why God could give such an illness to young infants who have not had a life. His reply gave me great comfort: we are not in this life for answers, this life is for lessons and questions, it isn’t until heaven that we receive answers.

 I met for the first time with my palliative doctor and her team, after that it kind of hit me that these were the people who were going to help me die. It was like they were fluffing my pillows for a good night’s sleep and it sunk in that there was going to be an end soon. That still didn’t mean I was going anywhere without a fight. I had trips to Cork for radiotherapy which would slow the cancer down but my doctors still warned my parents to have an early Christmas but because I knew this was going to be my last Christmas, I still wanted it to be special. Nonetheless Christmas remained December 25.

 I wanted unique gifts for all the people I loved, signet rings for my four best friends and one that I would wear as well, unique pieces of jewellery for my sister and my mother and other special friends. I didn’t ask for any gifts but somehow my mom managed to bring Santa Claus to the house on Christmas Eve while my friends and cousins were here. He gave a gift to everyone and we had a good laugh.

 I got a lot of happiness out of Christmas, we had more house parties and my debs was soon after. I got to bring one of my best friends, Joanne, and went with James and his date for the night.

 Some days I would wake up and I could easily appreciate the beauty of the world that I was leaving behind, although it does make me upset that I will never get to experience the feeling of living that I had on the bike or in the gym, or that I will never get to see my sister walk up the aisle next to the love of her life, or that I will never get to travel the world and see places like New Zealand, Asia or America or that I won’t get the chance to see my four best friends do as good in life as I know they will. But I have to remember that God is using me; whether He is using me as a symbol for people to appreciate life more or whether His first two mountains weren’t high enough for me, all I know is that I am walking with Him even though it is along His path.

Donal ended what he wrote with this:

I would like to take this chance to thank the people who asked not to be named but who have made a difference to the past few months for me and my family, whether they are other family members, business men or complete strangers. Thank you.

Medical misadventure verdict in Savita inquest

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

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The jury in the Savita Halappanavar inquest in Galway, Ireland, today returned a medical misadventure verdict based on systems failures and deficiencies in the medical management of Ms Halappanavar. Among the nine recommendations the jury made was that the Irish Medical Council should draw up clearer Guidelines.

Commenting on the inquest verdict, Dr Berry Kiely of the Pro Life Campaign said:

“We welcome all the recommendations from the inquest, including the call for Guidelines providing clarity for doctors in relation to medical interventions for women in pregnancy, which may result in the unintended loss of the baby,” she said.

Dr Kiely described as “little short of shameless” the manner in which those seeking the introduction of abortion legislation based on the X case ruling have exploited the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar all along, claiming that the failure to bring in such legislation was what led to Ms Halappanavar’s death.

“It is now clear from the facts presented at the inquest,” Dr Kiely stated, “that a number of what the inquest terms ‘systems failures’ and communications shortcomings significantly delayed the moment at which the medical team recognised the seriousness of her condition and carried out the appropriate medical intervention.”

“It is disturbing,” she said, “that those calling for abortion legislation never point out that no medical evidence whatsoever was heard in the X case.”

“The recent Oireachtas hearings, however, heard unanimous and authoritative evidence that abortion is not a treatment for suicidal ideation. Not only that, but the international evidence shows that legislation based on mental health and suicide grounds has invariably led to abortion virtually on demand.”

Dr Kiely acknowledged how difficult and upsetting the experience of the Inquest must have been for Savita’s husband, Praveen Halappanavar. “I hope that the manner in which the Inquest was conducted has brought clarity to the events which led to the tragic death of his wife,” she said.