photopol

Friday, September 07, 2018

PEACE PARK

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I finally got to visit the Mayo Peace Park in Castlebar. I had heard a lot about it and had even shared my uncle's story online with Michael Feeney way back. Various relatives had visited it and sent me photos over the years but it was difficult to get a proper impression of the place.

Now I was finally here and I must say I was impressed. It is well planned and laid out and has the required sense of dignity. I don't think its path to getting to where it is was all that smooth, so congratulations to all involved in giving us this memorial of which the county can be proud.

My own direct interest was in my uncle, John Dwyer, from Ballyhaunis and I have recounted his sad story on my own website.

It is interesting that the union jack flies freely in the park. There was a time not all that long ago that you wouldn't get away with that in the south, even, or maybe more particularly, in this context. And it is hung correctly. Full marks there.

There are a number of other flags flying, including the Canadian, USA and Australian flags. No surprise there as the Irish, including Mayo men, fought in those armies. Then there are the allies, France and Belgium. But Germany? This was the enemy. I don't think the men of Mayo died for Germany though Lord Haw Haw's father (Michael Joyce) was from Ballinrobe.

Part of the explanation may be that Castlebar is twinned with Höchstadt in Bavaria. And the fashion these days is all about inclusivity.

The centrepiece of the park is the memorial to those Mayomen who died in WWI, and I think they are probably all men on this particular structure. They are grouped by town, except for the latecomers who are placed at the extreme ends.

The memorial itself is a very impressive piece of work.

There is a separate smaller memorial to the Mayomen who died in WWII and a number of smaller memorials to those who died in the armies of USA, Canada and Australia in both World Wars. There are also smaller memorials dedicated to regiments (Connaught Rangers and Irish Guards) and others to those who served in Commonwealth forces or with the United Nations.

There is a specific memorial, from the Belgian government, to those who died in Flanders Fields in WWI, and although my uncle died at High Wood across the border in France I think of him in relation to this memorial also. "Flanders Fields" is emblematic and can serve as a generic name for significant part of the Somme front down into France. I visited the German cemetery at Langemark near Ieper (Ypres) in 1967/8, long before I knew anything about my uncle's story.

There is also a memorial to the 10 Mayo crew members of the Lusitania who died when she was torpedoed and sunk off the Irish coast in 1915 with a loss of 1,198 lives. Also remembered on this memorial are three Mayo people who survived.

There is a memorial to five Irish born merchant seamen, one of whom was from Mayo. These men were prisoners who refused to co-operate with the Nazis and paid the ultimate price. The Mayo man, radio officer Gerard O'Hara from Ballina, was in charge of the Irish prisoners of war in the Bremen-Farge Work Concentration Camp.

This memorial is dedicated to all the Mayo born civilians who were killed while providing emergency and essential services during the world wars of the past century. I think most of the names are probably from the WWII blitz.

This seat is dedicated to the memory of members of An Garda Síochána who gave their lives in the service of the State. It spans the period 1940 right up to 2015 and I assume it refers to Mayo born Gardaí.

There are a number of wall plaques such as this one to Nurse Bridget Quinn whose name also figures on the Civilian Memorial.

While I think the park was originally conceived as a WWI memorial the concept has clearly expanded to cover much more. Almost all of the recorded names are of men, not surprising when you consider the composition of armies, particularly in the more distant past. The only women's names I noticed were on the Civilian and Lusitania memorials, and Nurse Quinn's plaque. I expect there will be more as historians delve more deeply into the records.

Among the wall plaques is this one to two Mayo men who died in the Spanish Civil War. Kevin Mc Nally, in a comment on this post, informs me that they were on opposite sides in this conflict.

As I leave I notice this catch-all memorial stone.

And I just wonder if this title stone might need a minor correction in the future. Irish language rules on lenition are fierce complex so I'll leave it to someone better qualified than myself to come up with a definitive opinion on that one.

Tuesday, September 04, 2018

EIGHT HUNDRED

This is my eight hundreth post on this blog since joining Blogger in 2005. My Blogger Stats tell me that I've had over 300,000 page views over this period, whatever that is worth. Most of these have come via Google and may have been very transient (ie post not read).

This statistic may seem puny to real bloggers, but I make no attempt to get or hold a readership. Mostly I write for myself and then if a subject I've blogged on comes up in conversation I send the person a link.

The posts with the most page views have been:

Power Points where I discussed suspended Jersey Police Chief's evidence to the "Independent Jersey Care Inquiry" into child abuse on the island. (1,373 views)

Bono's House where I proved that Bono lived in Killiney. (1,288 views)

Remembering the Somme where I reported on the opening of an exhibition on Ireland and the Somme in WWI which went on display in the Dublin City Library & Archive in October 2016. (1,072 views)

Retuning the Harp where I reported Felix Larkin's talk on Harped History: Joyce, 1916 & Revisionism. (989 views)

Jon where I commented on the ridiculous and counterproductive complaint by the disgusting Jersey troll, Jon Haworth, to the island's Commissioner for Standards. (969 views)

I seem to have a fairly international audience, subject to the qualification about page views above.

I rarely get comments. The exceptions include 37 on Power Points and 48 on Jon. These, in particular, reflect the absence of independent main stream media in Jersey (CI), that there is significant discussion of real issues on the blogs, and that my blog has dealt in some depth with Jersey issues over the years. The comment count would be higher but for the fact that I had to moderate comments due to the Jersey troll, and dissallow most of his.

I am very careful with my blog posts. I put a lot of work into them and treat them with the same care and attention as I would an article for a national newspaper or an academic journal.

I try to use my own images as much as possible and this is generally not too hard as I report a lot on events I've attended and places I've been. Otherwise I just nick stuff. So where I have stolen or mutilated the images of others, thanks and please forgive me, it's in a good cause. I also take some consolation from the fact that, in turn, I make my own images freely available to others.

Finally, thanks to Blogger for doing all the work, for keeping an eye on my stats, and for some nice user-friendly templates.

Monday, September 03, 2018

DYING TO SURVIVE

The other day I met Rachael Keogh. Rachael is amazing. She is warm, open and quick to smile. While she is self-confident, there is a hint of shyness or reticence there.

All this is understandable when you know her history, and what a history.

When Peter was introducing me to her, he told me she had written a book about her experiences. He had previously mentioned she had drugs in her past. And that was it. We talked about her art and the work she was doing, about which more later.

But I was curious and when I got home I Googled her and came up with a story from 2009 in the Irish Independent which would make the hairs stand up on the back your neck.

It also referred back to an earlier article which arose out of an approach by Rachael's mother to the Independent when she gave the paper a photo of Rachael with the flesh on her arms dying from heroin burns. She was at the end of the road, a fourteen year long road littered with drugs of every hue. Her relentless injecting of heroin into her arms had led the flesh to start dying and she had been told she was on the edge of having them amputated.

Her mother's action was a last throw of the dice in the hope that the publicity would help get Rachael into long term rehab. Sky News picked up on the story and made a documentary, but despite Rachael and her desperate plight being in the headlines, she still had to wait her turn to get into rehab. Too many addicts and too few beds.

At this stage I really did want to read the book so I got a copy from my local library. I expected it to be a harrowing read but I was not prepared for the journey I was taken on.

From a really disturbed family background, Rachael just slid into drugs. They were all around the place and many of her friends were experimenting. Not all of them followed her down the path but she quickly escalated her way through the range of available drugs and her behaviour deteriorated drastically.

To feed her habit she stole from all and sundry, including her own family. She had a go at prostitution for a while. She was in and out of prison. It was heartbreaking to read, but the real heartbreak was those times she got "clean", and there were many, only to crash again and again. The tension reading the book was unbearable. Each time she got clean you wondered was this it. Then you looked at how many pages were left in the book and you knew she was going to crash again.

In retrospect she describes these as relapses, a word that comes nowhere near describing them. It reminded me of alcoholics talking about slips, but they are not slips like slipping on a banana skin, they are falling into the deepest black hole you can imagine. Language trivialises the experience.

I know from alcoholic rehab that the counsellors can usually tell fairly early on who is going to make it this time and who is not. Success requires that the decision to quit has to come from the depths of your being and has to be for yourself, not for family, friends or neighbours, for you and you alone.

Rachael has a good take on this. While she was fighting the drugs she did not succeed. That only came when she realised it was herself she was fighting, that she had to face up to whatever she was running away from and let her real self come through. And she had to do this for herself.

It took fourteen years in all for her to get there and she's been there now for the last ten years. An enlightened judge has struck out her past record. She is now bringing her experience and street cred to bear in mobilising support for those caught up in the treadmill of addiction.

She did a lot of work with schools a while back raising pupils' awareness of the dangers of the drug scene. Nowadays her talks as such are directed at drug services.

She has written the book and she has made three documentaries with Sky news. These date from the early days of her recovery. For her they were to help her recovery. Now they are there to help others.

She wrote a play, Heroin, with Grace Dyas illustrating the drug scene and they have now updated it with Barry O'Connor. Rachael says:

The newly rewritten play is part of a campaign with a whole new cast. It's emphasizing the need for change in drug policy and basically we are putting it up to the government now. No more holding back. We have the support of lots of people including Senator Lynn Ruane, Aodhan O'Riordan and loads more. It's gonna be good.

Since 2013 herself and Grace Dyas have been looking at creative ways to get people thinking/talking about decriminalisation and they have an ongoing petition to Government to de-criminalise small time drug addicts and shift public spending from prisons to rehab.

Kitty Holland's piece in the Irish Times on the play is worth a read. You can listen to Grace and Rachael on the Irish Times Women's Podcast.

Rachael's 2014 interview on NearFM with Leslie Murphy about her petition is worth a listen.

I said I'd come back to the art. Rachael is into this big time. An example is the picture above which she is donating to Casadh to hang in their new premises in Cork Street. She sought suggestions for a title from the public and got a big response. The one chosen by Casadh was "Rise from the Struggle" which was submitted by Sarah Kidney.

And I can let you in on a secret. The above pictures are watercolours but her next one will be in oils.

Best of luck Rachael. May the Force be with you.

Update
9 July 2019

Happily, Rachael's book has now been reissued with a new introduction. So it will be a doddle to get hold of a copy.

Some pics I got from Rachael around the Ballymun performance of #HEROIN

Community Policing

The Truth on the Wall

And the good news is that there are more murals to come in 2019, this time with the support of Dublin City Council. The age of enlightenment.

This recent radio interview with Rachael and Ryan Tubridy on the occasion of the publication of the new edition of her book is a gem and well worth a listen, if only to realise that there is a life after addiction and to share this woman's joy in her recovery.

DEARBHLA AGAIN

Here are some more pictures from a glorious photo shoot of Dearbhla Molloy many years ago, this time in black and white.

If you click on any image you'll get a larger version and a strip of thumbnails at the bottom right of the screen. You can use these to scroll through the larger images in gallery fashion.