Letters to the Editor: Wounded Kerry will be back for Sam
Supporters watch as Kerry's David Clifford prepares to take a sideline kick during the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Round 1 match between Kerry and Donegal at Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
The decision by the GAA’s central competitions control committee (CCCC) to take no further disciplinary action and to not impose retrospective suspensions following the testy game between Kerry and Donegal in Killarney on May 23 was a very sensible one.
The CCCC ruled that the off-the-ball incidents and the on-field skirmishes were appropriately dealt with by the referee on the day.
As expected, there was needle in the game from the get go as the teams had already locked horns in the 2025 All Ireland final and twice in this year’s National League Division One competition. It all boiled over after the half-time hooter when a skirmish involving up to 50 people broke out on the pitch.
Kerry’s loss to Donegal in Killarney was a bitter pill to swallow. We dislike losing, especially on our home patch. While Donegal were deserving winners in Killarney, the sending off of Kerry’s Micheál Burns was a game-changer. Donegal are now many experts’ fancy for the Sam Maguire Cup, but beware of the wounded Kingdom lion as the competition progresses.
Emotions can run high in the heat of battle and players and officials may sometimes act a little out of character. There is widespread relief in Kerry that neither our inspirational superstar, David Clifford, nor any other player from either team was retrospectively suspended. Likewise, football supporters in Kerry are pleased that Jim McGuinness escaped a ban for engaging in a half-time scuffle with the majestic Diarmuid O Connor. A Kerry victory over Donegal at the business end of the All-Ireland series will be all the sweeter with Jim straddling the sideline!
I love this campaign that Tony Murray, of Before We Die, has started, I hate that he has had to do it. I’ve known the Murrays for a long time, our daughters are the same age and know each other, both have rare genetic conditions, and both have an intellectual disability.
Intellectual disability presents on a spectrum of mild to severe. I used think that I was one of the “lucky” ones because I live with “mild”. That was many years ago, I’ve learnt the hard way that there’s nothing mild about mild when you live with it, only if and when you compare it to something worse. I’ve also learnt that regardless of the condition or a diagnosis of mild, moderate, or severe, the issues are pretty much the same and we all fight the same system(s).
I moved with my daughter from Dublin to Waterford three years ago and saw first-hand the distress caused by uprooting people from their familiar community (and trying to build a new one). I dread to think what will happen to my daughter when I die. I won’t be there to pick up the pieces if she is forced to move from her home.
Whatever plans are put in place for “after we die”, it’s very obvious parents and families are not part of that process. This has to change.
I commend Tony for highlighting the situation we find ourselves in, when I was younger I knew older parents who spoke about this fear. Now I’m older myself and that fear is growing daily.
If our children are seen as citizens, I’m afraid that they are in fact, second-class citizens.
I agree fully with this letter. There is nothing in place to help parents who have children with disabilities. I see a family member who has a child with a disability — the parents never get a break. There is no respite. There are no family holidays. It is 24/7 care. I’m the only one who can give them a break once a week. A friend of mine with an adult child with disabilities died recently and before she died, her daughter came from England to care for them and is now permanently in Ireland. She had to give up her home, work, and her partner to care for her sibling. Is that right, when we live in a rich country? Our Government has opted out of their responsibilities in treating all Irish citizens equally. Shame on them for their total lack of care.
In Ireland, the State expects ageing parents to carry the full burden of caring for an adult child with severe disabilities long after they are able.
By the time people reach their 60s and 70s, the body starts to break down. Joints ache, energy falls, mobility declines, and some tasks just need to be avoided. That is normal. The real injustice is not only what this does to ageing parents, but what it does to the disabled person. When carers are too old, too tired, or too worn out to keep lifting, driving, organising, and accompanying, the person with needs loses far more than convenience. They lose access to the outside world, to stimulation, to friendship, to community, and to the ordinary pleasures that make life full.
My daughter is 30. She is non-verbal, non-mobile, and dependent on us for every part of daily life.
That is the reality the system ignores. As parents age, we take her out less. Less and less do we bring her out as often to the places she enjoys — the pier, the market, the pub, ordinary life. Not because she wants less of the world. It is because we are tired and aching.
What is most depressing is the lack of planning. There is no proper assessment of our own capacity to keep going, and no serious pathway to supported living before crisis hits. Instead, the system waits until the emergency comes — often when the parent dies — and then scrambles for a bed, usually far from the person’s community and roots. It is reactive, expensive, and cruel. It destroys families and often leaves people in unsuitable for-profit placements that nobody would choose if planning had been done properly.
And the frustrating part: Other countries manage this better. Across much of Europe and in the UK, planned transitions are a normal part of disability services. The idea that an ageing parent must remain the default lifelong care solution is not a law of nature — it is an Irish policy failure. This is not an unavoidable problem. It is a failure of will.
A decent system would plan, assess needs properly, and create a transparent route from family care to supported living while the person is still safe, known, and connected to their community. That is not radical. The fact that Ireland still cannot do it is the real scandal.
I read with great interest Elaine Loughlin’s very pertinent article in Saturday’s Examiner, exploring the competing forces between morality and the economy, Why did the Government remove services from Occupied Territories Bill? Its the economy, stupid.
As it resonates with the subject of Elaine’s article, the following is what I recently wrote to our Taoiseach and defence minister.
“I agree with both your views that whatever action Ireland takes with regard to the Occupied Territories Bill, it will not have any impact on the shocking behaviour of the Israeli government.
“However, as I am sure you are aware, there are two separate and very different facts or issues involved in this important decision that your Government has to make. Yes, Israel will not change direction because of anything Ireland does. However, what Ireland does, or does not do, can have huge implications as to whether Ireland’s integrity, including the integrity of the Irish people, is being preserved. And protected.
“Consequently, as we can have agreement on Israel not changing its behaviour with regard to anything Ireland does, I suggest, with respect, that our Government’s primary attention then needs to be on what we are in control of and can influence. Which is the preservation of our very important asset, which is Ireland’s integrity.”
