Category: Newspaper Articles

I’ve spent quite a lot of time in hospital, usually visiting someone or attending an appointment for my son. But I particularly remember the time my daughter was born two months early. The doctors gave us a side room in the hospital while our daughter was on a life support machine. Everything felt so fragile.…

If it wasn’t for the rain, autumn would be one of my favourite times of the year. I love the low sun casting its long shadows, bathing everything in a golden glow. I love the crispness in the air: cold enough to see your breath, but without the wind that blows the cold deep into…

I should have a soft spot for Dublin, it’s where my wife is from! Whilst there’s lots to enjoy in Dublin, it is just a bit too crowded, give me the beauty and peacefulness of Donegal any day.  Perhaps it’s because most of the times we go down to Dublin are for hospital appointments, but…

I flipped on the radio in the car the other day and caught the tail-end of some afternoon call-in segment. It must have been a life-coach who was taking calls, and just as the piece was ending a text message was read out. It went something like this: “I’m 49 years old and always pushing…

Duchenne Awareness Day comes around every September.  Thank-you if you’re someone who recently supported the campaign for a drug to help.  Duchenne is a very rare progressive muscle wasting disease.  It’s a condition that’s close to my own heart as we lost my sister-in-law to this neuromuscular disease.  Normally it’s only boys who are affected,…

As a kid my favourite TV programme was Record Breakers. I loved watching the attempts to see who could lift the most, eat the most, balance crates on their chin etc. And I loved browsing through the Guinness Book of World Records. I found an old edition of it recently in my dad’s house –…

You know you’ve hit middle age when all the targeted adverts seem to be about what you can do to maintain your health.  There are exercises for your knees, others for balance, even treatments for hair loss! I’m reminded of a saying that I often heard when we lived in Cavan – “your health is…

You’ve seen the horrendous footage from Nepal and Tibet. People running for their lives. Tiny little figures down on the valley floor. And the camera pans to an awful, cataclysmic stampede of water hurtling down the valley towards them. Sweeping everything in its path—roads, bridges, heavy-duty machinery, and people—to oblivion. The footage reminded me of…

What makes someone drive the wrong way down the motorway at high speed despite the risks to themselves and others?  Was it for social media attention? Was it to escape from the Gardai? Whatever the reason it is tragic that the five teenage boys died, and that three women and a seven-year-old boy were seriously…

I’m just back from holidays and a little late getting to Mayo’s All-Ireland win. (Adapted from an article by my friend Pastor Warren Peel in Galway) There can’t be anyone left in Ireland who doesn’t know that Mayo won the All-Ireland. 82,300 in Croke Park, a million more watching on TV, the green and red…