I am one of 35,000 people in Northern Ireland who has experienced a stroke. Two years ago as I was getting ready for the Ireland v South Africa rugby match in Dublin, I had a Transient Ischaemic Attack or mini-stroke. I had the same symptoms as a full blown stroke – numbness in my hands, slurred speech and my face slumped on one side.
It was very frightening but thankfully my symptoms passed within 24 hours. With the right care and support stroke doesn’t have to change your life and I was back playing for just five months after my TIA.
I’m backing the Stroke Association’s Make May Purple campaign and I’d like to encourage readers to join me. It’s easy to get involved and a great way to show your support for stroke survivors.
Sign up for an action pack at www.stroke.org.uk/makemaypurple or contact the Stroke Association Northern Ireland.
CHRIS HENRY
Ulster rugby player
Carlingford Lough area still under performing in tourist terms
The Narrow Water Bridge Community Network has campaigned relentlessly for many years for a bridge at Narrow Water. The sustaining argument for the bridge is and always has been based simply on the premise that it will provide a much-needed boost to the development of tourism throughout the south Down, south Armagh and north Louth area.
This argument is in no way new. Indeed, as so often is the case in the area of social progress, we are standing on the shoulders of giants.
It is tempting to ponder today, almost 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement, what those pioneers of progress would make of today’s attempts to provide this critical piece of infrastructure for the people of the Carlingford Lough area. If they were to return from their well-earned eternal slumber, the catastrophic failure to deliver the project in 2013, despite approval from both governments and substantial funding from the EU, would be too painful to mention.
The network is fully aware of the A1-A2 access issue and welcomes all contributions to the debate including that from Michael Curran, former director of economic and cross-border development for Louth County Council referred to in The Irish News (April 20). While a laudable attempt to square the circle of strategic traffic management and essential tourist infrastructure, to proceed with such an option without the most thorough review, could be highly damaging.
This is particularly critical in an area, which comprises an extensive Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in counties Down and Armagh with vast areas of conservation and special protection in and around the lough on the Co Louth side.
Despite its obvious natural capital and location the Carlingford Lough area continues to under perform in tourist terms. Investment in the area is sporadic as evidenced by hotels in spectacular locations lying derelict for decades. This miserable litany of disinterest has been recently added to with the recent closure of a landmark restaurant and licensed premises after more than a century of business in Warrenpoint.
The NWB is a stand-alone project, which, in stark contrast to any Southern Relief Road option, is shovel-ready and could mark the end this cycle of mediocrity and allow us to move on significantly from a lingering post-Troubles twilight zone mentality. It will create a natural inter-connector for the scenic areas of Cooley, Gullion and Mourne and will open up a world of sustainable tourist development from Downpatrick to the Boyne. There is a critically untapped market for new and interesting walking and cycling destinations.
What a fitting monument to those who spoke for peace, partnership and prosperity in darker times.
JIM BOYLAN
NWB chairman, Co Down
Man of great courage touched lives of millions
I wish to extend my sympathy on the death of Fr Dan Berrigan S.J. to his family, friends and to the Jesuit Order, through which he gave his life in service of God and humanity.
I feel deeply privileged and grateful that I knew Fr Dan and had the joy of spending time in his presence, both when I visited him in the US and when he came to Ireland during the height of the Troubles to visit the political prisoners and give talks on peacemaking and the Gospel of non violence.
Fr Dan was a man of great courage, whose life touched millions, not only through his writings but especially by his actions. His message was delivered with great clarity and based on his passionate belief in the power of the Gospel of non violence and Jesus’s message of no killing and love of enemies.
As a young man he knew the cost of war when his four brothers left home to join the war. They returned having witnessed much horror and suffering and it was out of this experience came the Berrigan brothers’ conviction of what Fr Dan called ‘the sin of war’ and their lifetime commitment to the abolition of war, nuclear weapons and all forms of violence.
Fr Dan worked all his life for the poor and peace. In one of his books he wrote that “the world would turn away from war and killing and turn its face towards the stranger, the widow and the orphan”.
He believed passionately in peace, that people and things can change, and in the possibility of peaceful settling of human differences.
Let us remember him by working for the fulfilment of his vision of a world without nuclear weapons and war.
MAIREAD MAGUIRE
Nobel Peace Laureate, Belfast BT9
Rather unhelpful
I was brought up by my father with the fine saying: “It is better to keep your mouth shut and look a fool than open it and prove it.”
I thought this rather apt when I read President Obama’s answer to a question posed to him by a young girl from Belfast. I applaud Alex Kane for appearing to be the only one in the political sphere to pick up on it. Rather than talking about unionist and nationalist, he spoke of ‘unionist and Sinn Féin’ quite ignorant speak from a world leader.
He didn’t stop there, he continued his ignorance by calling for us to create a new identity, a new Northern Irish identity. I’d love to know his thinking behind this, how it could be helpful? Everyday we have the state of ‘Northern Ireland’ rammed down our throats. Arlene Foster would be speechless if she didn’t talk of her ‘Northern Ireland’.
In her
[ recent platform for the recent elections in The Irish NewsOpens in new window ]
, she spoke of ‘Northern Ireland’ no less than eight times. I think I will keep my ‘Irish’ identity if it is all the same to Mr Obama.
I would go so far as to say and probably controversially that with integrated education a child’s ‘Irish’ identity will indeed succumb to this new ‘northern Irish’ identity. He also talked about segregation.
I dare him or anyone else to challenge me if they think I am any more intolerant of Protestants because I went to a Catholic maintained school.
AODHAN HUGHES
Darkley, Co Armagh
Bromidic debate
The leaders’ television debate took me back many years and reminded me of a carousel that on a yearly basis would visit the small village where we simple people lived.
The paint would be peeling off the rides, the animals were knackered and the brassy ladies’ costumes were tawdry, but year after year we simple folk lapped it up and the reason that we did was because the posters heralding the carousel’s arrival were bright, glossy and full of promise, when in fact the carousel was empty, facile and bromidic and on the 5th of May would move on and leave us simple folk sad and disappointed.
WILSON BURGESS
Derry City
