Irish Examiner view: Paralympics challenge for athletes
Para-triathlete Judith MacCombe is one of the many athletes in Team Ireland participating in this year's Paralympics in Paris, France. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
Ireland has long had a supportive relationship with participants in both the Paralympics and the Special Olympics, and this week is another opportunity for some of our most determined athletes to demonstrate what they are made of in Paris.
On Wednesday, the Paralympics — the competition which concentrates on individuals with physical challenges — will open in the French capital for 11 days, with an Irish team of 35 competing with the world’s best and bravest across nine different sports.
The Paralympics had their genesis after the Second World War when 16 wheelchair-using veterans participated in the 1948 London Olympics. Ireland entered the first official games in Rome in 1960, which featured 400 athletes from 23 countries.
This summer, there will be 4,400 competitors from 177 countries in 22 sports, with 549 gold medals there for the taking.
Among the main attractions is wheelchair rugby, nicknamed, not always fondly, as “murderball”, blind football (played with an audible ball), sitting volleyball, and much more.
Our stars will be battling for medals in archery, athletics, cycling, equestrian, powerlifting, rowing, swimming, table tennis and triathalon and are selected from across the country with representatives from Carlow, Cavan, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Sligo, Tyrone, Wexford, and Wicklow.
And their back stories make astonishing reading: Kerrie Leonard, who became a world class archer since being paralysed from the waist down after a fall from a tractor in 1997 when she was six; Róisín Ní Riain, the current world para-swimming champion and record holder in the backstroke while studying for a science degree; table tennis supremo Colin Judge, who was born with the absence of both legs and part of the right arm, and Kate Kerr-Horan, who was found unconscious in her family’s fields as a toddler, possibly kicked by a horse, and was told she might never walk again. Now she is a star in able-bodied and para-dressage, has a degree in equine business, and is a qualified riding instructor.
Or there is power-lifter Britney Arendse, who suffered a spinal cord injury in a car accident; Tiarnán O’Donnell, who lost his leg to an extremely rare form of cancer just after his Leaving Cert year, now a champion rower after having first made his name as one of Ireland’s top wheelchair basketball players.
Then there are identical twins Judith and Chloe MacCombe competing in the triathalon despite their visual impairment.
So good luck to Aaron, Barry, Britney, Cassie, Catherine, Chloe, Colin, Damien, Deaten, Dearbhaile, Eimear, Ellen, Eoin, Eve, Greta, Jessica, Josephine, Judith, Kate, Katie(s), Katie-George, Kerry, Linda, Martin, Mary, Michael, Mitchell, Nicole, Orla, Richael, Róisín, Ronan, Sarah, Shauna, and Tiarnán. These are all remarkable people with an indomitable spirit who deserve our support.
Among a number of claims to fame we could make, it’s reasonably fair to suggest that the Irish invented talk TV — a medium in which we have provided some outstanding exponents. Readers can make their own list here.
So, it would be wrong not to note, with regret, the passing of Phil Donahue, the Irish-American journalist regarded by many as the pre-eminent master of the art, who died at home with his family at the age of 88.
ran for 29 years until 1996, and was the first to include audience participation, an innovation which Donahue said he discovered by accident at the Dayton, Ohio, TV station, WLWD.
He was interviewing a guest on the subject of atheism when he realised that the audience was asking better questions than him. He picked up a portable mic and wandered among them, and a new format was born which spawned many imitators.
Donahue had a nose for news. His was the first mainstream show to address the issue of Aids. He broadcast live from Russia and widened the US debate on important subjects such as abortion, race relations, and sexual liberation. He interviewed presidential candidates.
He was not without his critics, who disliked what they described as “tabloid TV.” But he was unapologetic. “Tabloid is just a word to describe a hell of a story,” he said.
Donahue was the market leader for years until the arrival of Oprah Winfrey. Attempts to reclaim the crown included a plan to live broadcast the execution of a North Carolina murderer, David Lawson, from the gas chamber — a project which was stopped by the US Supreme Court at the last minute.
He retired as the veteran of nearly 7,000 shows, with 20 Emmy awards, and a sense of pride in all those who had followed his lead.
Parents who have been waiting for four years for the return of therapies to the largest special school in Munster might be forgiven for thinking they have walked right into the pages of a plot by Kafka.
It’s agreed that there is a legitimate case to assist more than 100 vulnerable children who have not received a single hour of help since before covid. There is money available.
At one stage, the suggestion private therapy could be brought in to fill the gap was being looked upon favourably.
Now all of that is in limbo while a pilot project is carried out, an initiative from which St Killian’s Special School in Cork is excluded. Further progress is unlikely before January, the fifth year of waiting for something to happen.
“A school not being selected in Phase 1 does not preclude selection in other phases” says the official spokesman in a remarkably tin-eared response to the issues raised.
Politicians should not be surprised if parents wonder why matters have become so protracted. It couldn’t, could it, be anything to do with the election?
TDs and ministers may have plenty of time, but children needing an education don’t.
