Joe Horgan Column
By Joe Horgan
TWO incidents a week or so ago gave some little insight into these two
countries of ours. One happened on a Dublin street, one on a Belfast street.
Two separate, unconnected events but if we look closely at them we can
see some very clear things about these two countries we all live in.
On a lunchtime afternoon a woman in her 70s was cycling along St. Stephen’s
Green in Dublin when she was knocked off her bike by the opening of a
car door.It just so happened that the car was a ministerial one and that
the door had been opened by the Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism
John O’Donoghue.
Now accidents will happen and however shocking the incident was for the
woman involved the whole thing was just misfortunate more than anything
else.
It is also worth noting for what its worth that this particular Fianna
Fail Minister is one of the few who seems to garner respect across the
board.
So an unfortunate accident, a distressed cyclist and a presumably upset
Minister. Not really much more to the incident than that.
Fair enough let us leave it there for now.
Fair play we said of him at the time echoing the words of Patrick Maguire.
Tony Blair had just apologised publicly to the Guildford Four and despite
the twisted objections of the DUP and the ludicrously-bigoted Daily Mail
we were all moved by the emotion of the occasion. I recall writing in
praise of Blair which is not something I feel like doing very often and
being caught up in the feeling of it all. How could we not have been?
Anyway he made this seemingly heartfelt apology and we all applauded.
Fair enough let us leave it there for now.
The day after the accident John O’Donoghue visited the woman he’d
knocked off her bicycle and bought her a get well Mass card. He apologised
and told her he was very upset.
There is no reason to suggest he wasn’t and he at least went to
see her in person. We have no reason to suggest anything untoward about
his own personal behaviour.
What we can take note of though, what we can look at, peering through
it and seeing something of this Ireland is that when he went to see her,
the next day remember, is that the woman was lying on a trolley in the
A&E department.
A woman in her 70s is involved in an accident and is told she requires
surgery on her leg as a result and is over 24 hours later still in A&E
waiting for a bed.
The Minister, a member of successive governments that have overseen the
swamping of this country with wealth that is exclusively private rather
than public, will at least have been able to see first-hand what voice
after voice have been saying that for a country so lauded for its wealth
the state of the health service is only just short of criminal.
The woman also reported that whilst in A&E she had sandwiches for
breakfast, dinner and for tea. I wonder what the Minister had.
Gerry Conlon, the most visible symbol of the Guildford Four, the one
punching the air outside the Old Bailey crying out his innocence gave
an interview to an Irish newspaper recently.
He came across as haunted and distressed. He was a reminder that for
all the joy of their release that the damage and the wrongness had already
been done and that his sentence was never ending.
He had spent 17 years in prison and watched his father die there. It
was a stark reminder of what we should not forget now that we are in a
different stage of the relationship between Ireland and Britain.
Gerry Conlon gave his own account of Tony Blair and the apology. He says
that he asked Blair at their private meeting inside Downing Street for
the kind of specialised treatment that the Beirut hostages received. Tony
Blair personally assured him that this would be provided.
He turned, Gerry Conlon says, to his PA and said to see that we get
that help. Nearly a year on Gerry Conlon has heard nothing. He even contacted
Downing Street and was told to put his request in writing.
Which leaves us thinking what? That we were had? That we watched not
a genuine apology but a stage managed media event? That we were made fools
of?
We can all make our own minds up about the minister and the A&E department
and Tony Blair and the apology. Beyond the woman in her 70s on the trolley
being given sandwiches for breakfast, dinner and tea and Gerry Conlon
adrift in his freedom we can see even if we don’t want to our two
countries.
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