On my walk into town from our abode at the Wooden Bridge we have come to Shilling Hill, in the townland of Knocknasheea a reasonably modern areaaBoyle Abbey, Abbeytown Bridge, reconstructed about 30 years or more ago when the new road to Sligo was being built. Here is really where […]
Married life
Out of Darkness Into Loving Light
As most of you will know Helen my dear wife of nearly 44 years passed away on Christmas Day 2016 and what followed was six months of darkness, loneliness and absolute hell, poorly controlled by foreign travel to England, Malta, Morocco, France, Belgium and Italy. Travel I thought might help […]
A Trip To Malta
Helen, my wife, had died on Christmas Day 2016. The late winter and early spring of 2017 were real hard days for me but by April the corona of light that signifies the end of the tunnel, the dispenser of gloom and despair was growing larger by the week. Helen […]
Helen Patricia Teresa Malpas nee Towey
She died at 5.30pm on Christmas Day 2016 in an isolated single room in the Women’s Medical Ward of Sligo Hospital. 43 years and 252 days after our “I wills” were said on St Patrick’s Day 1973. 43 years and252 days of hard work, six kids, much happiness, some sadness, […]
A 21st Century Comedy of Errors
The main players in this incident packed story are Dr Kathleen Finan, medical consultant at Sligo General Hospital, Dr Una Clyne, urological consultant at Sligo General Hospital and Dr Kilian Walsh, urological consultant at Galway University Hospital. There are two separate scenes, Sligo University Hospital ( now referred by SGH) […]
The Glorious Days Of Late Spring
Well the panic station weeks of April are thankfully now over and Helen is recovering well at home under my immaculate and dutiful nursing skills. The District Nurse now sees her every other day to tend the massive wound which became infected after the angiogram procedure and had to be […]
Two Weeks Of Trauma – Part 3
Monday 18th April An early phone call from Galway ICU telling us not to come down as Helen was being bundled into an ambulance and being taken back to Sligo and to ring Sligo ICU that afternoon. I rang at 4.00pm and was told that Helen had arrived but that […]
Two Weeks Of Trauma – Part 2
Tuesday April 12th After a night of disturbed reflective sleep, I was up early at 6.00am. The management of the hotel had given us a splendid suite of rooms, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and a fully equipped kitchen. All night long I was pondering on the resuscitation […]
Two Weeks Of Trauma – Part 1
On the Sunday afternoon of 10th April my wife of 43 years and one month took a funny turn. Sitting in an armchair reading her kindle, she started struggling to breath, she could not speak but after a couple of minutes things returned to normal. She had not been too […]
The Law Is A Fucking Ass
If the dust has settled, it is possibly now a time for analysis. Let us take for a start the Manchester Evening News article on 26th March 2016. The headline says that the victims had dropped the legal action against the Salford Diocese. In fact they did not drop it […]