O’Brien’s, William Street, Galway this morning.
Thanks John Gallen
Meanwhile, in yesterday’s Indo:
Thanks Niamh McCarthy
[Garda whistleblower John Wilson on TV3’s Tonight With Vincent Browne last week]
Mr Wilson is currently in Cavan General Hospital, after having emergency surgery for bowel cancer this week. He is currently awaiting results of a biopsy.
His wife, Anne Wilson, spoke to Pat Kenny this morning about her husband and about the stress he has been under for the last number of years in relation to his efforts to reveal what he believes has been wrongdoing by some members of the gardaí.
Pat Kenny: “You’re quoted in the papers as saying the stress of the whole thing brought on the bowel cancer, is that really your belief?”
Anne Wilson: “Well Pat, there’s no history in John’s family of it, or cancer. And the amount of stress is unbelievable, what that man has gone through over the last couple of years. There’s only one other person that can understand the amount of stress and that would be Maurice McCabe. It’s unbelievable what those two men had to go through. So I’m convinced it has contributed to because stress does cause..”
Kenny: “Stress indeed is one of the factors. If you have any kind of predisposition to it, the addition of stress on top of everything else can certainly bring it on and John undoubtedly went through an awful lot of stress. Has that stress been in anyway aliviated by Minister Varadkar and, overnight, Minister Joan Burton, offering their support?”
Wilson: “Well, actually, John was having a bad day yesterday in the hospital cause they lifted them out of the bed so he was in a bit of pain and when I heard about Minister Varadkar’s statement, I got in touch with John in the hospital and he was delighted so yes it has helped. I’m delighted that Mr Varadkar came out and spoke like that..it’s just it’s taken so long.”
Kenny: “Yes, and Joan Burton said that she was speaking really for all the Labour colleagues in cabinet – that they were of one view about all of this. So there’s no doubt that Sgt McCabe and your husband, John, have certainly have a good deal of support in Cabinet.”
Wilson: “Well I have to thank Clare Daly, Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, Mick Wallace, and Joan Collins – they were there from the beginning – and Padraig MacLochlainn and Mary Lou McDonald, they have been absolutely fantastic. From the very beginning, the Independents put their neck on the line and supported the Garda whistleblowers. And when the story came out first they could have sat back and just let it go, you know when we brought to their attention but they kept going and going and going. They were absolutely amazing, fighting for them.”
Kenny: “Yesterday, yet again, Commissioner Callinan refused to apologise for that ‘disgusting’ remark that he made back in January to the committee, what do you feel about that?”
Wilson: “I feel that Commissioner Callinan’s excuse now, or reason, for his ‘disgusting’ remark totally contradict the way he said it back in January. At the time in January, he didn’t mention it was the way the information was given to the public. He said it was disgusting and then he emphasised it by saying ‘personally, I think it’s disgusting’. So his comments now are totally contradicting, in my opinion, what he had said in the PAC.”
Listen back here
Meanwhile
Inevitable result of Varadkar and Joan Burton comments is not withdrawal of the words but resignation of commissioner. Time to go.
— Shane Ross (@Shane_RossTD) March 21, 2014
Previously: Gwan The Leo
Gilmore joins Varadkar’s call for Callinan to withdraw ‘disgusting’ comments (Irish Times)
[Sevastopol, Ukraine]
Our response to the Crimean crime,
Falls somewhat short of sublime,
Mere sanctions, alas,
On Muscovite gas,
Will never mean peace in our time.
John Moynes
(EPA)
BBC reports:
Kate Bush has announced she is to play a series of concert dates in the UK later this year. An announcement on her official website said she will play 15 shows at London’s Hammersmith Apollo in August and September. The title for the show is Before the Dawn and the first date will be 26 August. The singer, whose hits include Wuthering Heights and Hounds of Love, last toured in 1979.
Tickets go on sale at 9.30am next Friday, March 28.
Meet Robbie
at
Joanne O’Riordan’s robot.
The University Times writes:
“The robot, nicknamed “Robbie”, was built for Cork teenager Joanne O’Riordan, who is one of only nine people worldwide living with tetra-amelia, a condition in which the sufferer is born without arms or legs. In April 2012 O’Riordan addressed the UN at the ITU’s “Girls in Technology” conference and offered the challenge for someone to build her a robot.”
“Taking up this challenge is Assistant Professor Kevin Kelly, of Trinity’s School of Engineering, along with a team of young engineers.”
…
“The prototype is a humanoid robot, with features like a head, torso, legs, and arms, and when fully extended stands at 140cm. In order to communicate with people the head has a face on an LED screen, which can display emotions and blink. Instead of hands the machine has flexible grippers, which are balloons filled with coffee granules. Under normal circumstances the coffee particles behave like a liquid, but when the air is removed they jam into place and become rigid. By pressing the balloon against an object and creating a vacuum the robot can use this method to pick objects up, as it will conform to the object’s natural shape when soft and then harden around it.”
Trinity Engineers to Showcase Prototype Robot to United Nations (University Times)
Pic: Will Goodbody
Anne writes:
Blessington Street Basin in Phibsborough, Dublin 7 this morning – where would you get it?
From 1987, an ad for Marathon bar.
In the pre-Snickers era, Terence says he could chew away on one from 11am until lunchtime.
It was that big.