John McCarthy’s love of life should be an inspiration to us all

YEARS ago one of my best friends told me that “all people are mad, it’s just a question of degree”. It has stuck with me ever since. What is “normal”? What is “mad”? Is one better or worse? Who decides?

John McCarthy, who died this week at the age of just 61, as a result of motor neuron disease, brought the issue info focus for me many times in recent years. It was about five years ago when he first got in touch with a producer on The Last Word and persuaded my colleague that he would be a guest worth having on the programme. I was told that a self-declared madman wanted to come on the programme, to talk about his experiences, how they should be applied to others and how people with mental health issues should be treated by others in society.

As it happened I was interested, if only because I had grown up on the Lee Road in Cork, in the shadow of the since long closed Our Lady’s Hospital, a psychiatric institution that as good as incarcerated many of its patients. Some, however, were given “day release” and would wander along the road daily. Some were in a near comatose state, clearly drugged before release, or possibly worse as a result of electro-convulsive treatments (ECT). Others were hyper-active, talking gibberish. Sometimes, unfortunately and very sadly, there were occasions when patients took themselves down to the riverbank and threw themselves into the river; with other people rarely present to rescue them they didn’t survive.