Letters to the Editor: All-Ireland victory cannot be bought
Limerick's strength and conditioning coach Joe O'Connor, left, and coach Paul Kinnerk lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup on August 19, 2018, after their GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Final against Galway at Croke Park. File picture: Seb Daly/Sportsfile
In 2018, Limerick surprised the hurling world when they won the Liam McCarthy Cup after a lapse of 45 years. Over the next five years the Treaty men assembled an outstanding hurling team, or group as John Kiely calls it, and garnered some unprecedented success.
What surprised me was so many sports journalists, including some in the Irish Examiner, continued to attribute this success to the “genius” of Paul Kinnerk on the sideline and the substantial financial input of JP McManus.
Last year when Cork overturned Limerick in one of the greatest ever hurling matches in Páirc Uí Chaoimh those same journalists were quick out of the traps to predict that this would not happen again.
The overwhelming consensus was when Limerick got Cork into their happy stomping ground of Croke Park that the ‘brains trust’ of Kinnerk and Kiely would ensure that the Páirc Uí Chaoimh result was a flash in the pan.
They did not, however, reckon with the fact that Cork also had a few people on their sideline that knew a small bit about hurling and the Rebels prevailed once again.
Fast forward to 2025 when Limerick had stumbled through their league campaign and their opening championship game. We were all assured, however, that Limerick had earmarked May 18 when they would be welcoming Cork to the Gaelic Grounds. Legendary Limerick hurler Ciarán Carey stated the intention was Limerick, in their own patch, would “put manners on this Cork team”.
For whatever reason, Cork did not show up for this game and were beaten out of sight. Once again Carey could not contain himself and proclaimed that the “green machine” was back on the move and every other county were shaking in their boots.
Three weeks later, when Cork once again went into the lion’s den for the Munster final, the players and management had not read the script and, after another epic battle, the Mick Mackey cup went home on the Cork team’s bus.
When Cork recorded a big win over Tipperary in the round robin game at Páirc Uí Chaoimh the hurling ‘experts’ claimed the victory had no value as they had played the entire game with an extra man. In view of the events in Croke Park on last Saturday week maybe the Cork management could have got some credit for giving a lesson in how to use the extra man.
Including injury time, Limerick played for 62 minutes with an extra player and the much vaunted Limerick backroom team did not seem to have any idea how to utilise their numerical advantage.
Whichever of the remaining teams manage to win this year's All-Ireland hurling title will do so because they are the best team guided by an astute backroom team. It will not be necessary to have a ‘hurling guru’ on the side line or to have huge financial backing.
The suggestion that Donald Trump should win a Nobel peace prize, much less several as he believes, is unsound and offensive.
A subjective assessment of the list of peace prize winners, and other Nobel categories, shows people who have contributed so much for so long and made improvements to our lives and our knowledge. How can Donald Trump claim this?
His “complete and total” ceasefire was, like many ceasefires in the Middle East, over before it started and didn’t resolve any issues.
Pick a noble person for the Nobel prize.
A new report by the Women’s Aid shows that last year the organisation was contacted circa 32,000 times about incidences of domestic abuse, which is an increase of 12%.
The Women’s Aid annual impact report for 2024 revealed that abuse is at its highest level in 50 years. Disclosures of sexual abuse rose by 30% and pornography and the manosphere is especially a big concern. Ostensibly there has been 17% more calls to this organisation’s free phone helpline for domestic abuse.
One would have to say that those figures are staggeringly high, but most experts would state that is this is just the tip of the iceberg.
One must remember that most victim survivors of domestic abuse don’t contact a speciality service and I find this to be very concerning.
Sadly domestic violence remains endemic in our society. It’s alarming to learn that 35% of women will suffer domestic violence and will suffer from this abuse over the courses of their lives.
By continually highlighting this emotive issue, one would hope that it will encourage more people to reach out for the help that they need. It’s startling to also learn that there’s a rise in the number of disclosures in relation to former abusive partners. There can sometimes be a misconception that once somebody leaves, and the relationship ends, that the abuse ends. Sadly that’s not the case.
More than 33% of women last year that Women’s Aid supported through their services were experiencing post-separation abuse. It’s important to understand that this can can be an exceptionally high risk time because when an abusive partner has worked very hard to gain power and control over their partner, one worries that this can result in serious abuse with murder coming into play too.
Pornography is the elephant in the room as it’s impacting on how young people view relationships. It is giving sexual scripts to children before they ever embark out on their adult journey. Women’s Aid has stated that strangulation has to be now legislated for as well pornography.
As a sexual addiction clinician, I have seen the rise in pornography addiction amongst men which is most distressing. We need a multifaceted approach to this problem.
When there’s a good practice response from the guards , the results of these abuse cases can be transformative. I think it’s essential that our education systems are encouraged to support and nurture healthy relationships.
As the horrors of war in the middle east dominate the headlines, it is important that we do not forget the apocalyptic suffering of the Sudanese people in the midst of ‘the world’s largest humanitarian crisis’, according to the UN.
Tens of thousands of people have died as a result of the civil war which began in 2023, and more than 12m people have been displaced. There is heinous violence and famine plaguing the African nation. According to the World Food Programme, 24.6m people face food insecurity, while 637,000 face “catastrophic levels of hunger”. Children have suffered greatly with 15m needing humanitarian aid according to Unicef.
The Biden administration determined earlier this year that genocide was being perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces, one of the warring parties. Their opponents, The Sudanese armed forces have also been accused of totally reprehensible acts and war crimes, including indiscriminate bombing, and attacks on hospitals.
There have been attempts to end the conflict including by the US and Saudi Arabia and our own government has rightly provided over €10m in humanitarian support. Unfortunately, this horrendous war continues. Just this week, the World Health Organization stated that 40 civilians were killed in an attack on a hospital in one of the Southern regions.
It is imperative that world leaders give this the same attention as the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and the devastating war in Ukraine. A ceasefire, a surge of humanitarian aid and a palatable diplomatic settlement for both sides are essential.
