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WARM TRIBUTES HAVE been paid to Hugh Cooney, the former Enterprise Ireland chairman, who has died aged 63 after a two-year battle with colon cancer.
His death, on Monday, came just weeks after a Late Late Show appearance for which he received widespread praise.
Cooney used the opportunity to encourage people, particularly men, to take note of warning signs from their bodies, and to go for regular check-ups.
“I hope people go away learning from some mistakes I made,” he told Ryan Tubridy during the 25 September show.
In the course of the interview, the businessman described how he first became ill while in Frankfurt for a meeting in 2013.
“I was asleep and I woke up with a searing pain. I thought someone had shot me in the abdomen.”
“I had to lay up against the wall all night, went to the board meeting, was given a Nurofen Plus by one of the board members. It didn’t really help.”
On his return home, he consulted a doctor “and within half an hour was in St Vincent’s A&E”.
At first, they thought it was blocked gallstones – but within the space of about a week he was diagnosed with stage four cancer “primarily in the colon and into the liver”.
During his Late Late appearance, he said he currently had weeks to live.
“I’m ready to die, but I do want to leave some legacies behind me.”
“I accepted the diagnosis from the start. I was told there was a long road ahead of me. I took the positive from that statement, from the doctor. I’m a fighter, so I decided I was going to fight the cancer.
“Since then, in the last two years, I’ve probably had over fifty chemo sessions. All I said to my doctor at the time – leave no stone unturned, I’m with you. And he has left no stone unturned.”
He then appealed for people to take better care of their health:
“I’ll say to adults, and in particular to men, listen to your body. Learn from mistakes I made. Just do it, go for regular check-ups. Be honest when you’re preparing questionnaires for doctors.
“No shortcuts.”
He said that “in hindsight” he had made a number of errors before first seeking out medical help.
“Before I was diagnosed in 2013 I recall two occasions where I passed blood. I didn’t listen to my body.
“Typical man… Too busy. Macho. Infallible. Woke up the next morning, no problem. Ignored it. But that was the body telling me something.”
Ryan Tubridy paid a lengthy tribute to Cooney on his radio show this morning, describing the interview as an emotional and moving experience.
“We’re thinking of his family today and may he rest in peace.”
Jobs minister Richard Bruton said he had learned of the death with “deep sadness”.
“Hugh was Chairman of Enterprise Ireland for five years from November 2008 to July 2013. He played a huge role in Ireland’s economic recovery as he chaired Enterprise Ireland through very difficult years.
“Hugh was a cheerful and resourceful man in life who brought these very same qualities to his battle with cancer. He was determined to understand the challenge and give insight to others. I greatly admired him for his courage.
“His loss will be deeply felt by all those who had the privilege of knowing him and I extend my sympathies to Hugh’s wife Nuala, and his five children at this very difficult time.”
Fianna Fáil’s jobs spokesman Dara Calleary said Cooney had taken up the Enterprise Ireland role “at a particularly difficult time in global economics, and through his determination and vision, managed to grow and develop the organisation”.
“Following his diagnosis, Hugh campaigned tirelessly to try and raise awareness, particularly among men, about the need for screening. His courage and advocacy during his illness reflected the kindness and selflessness that embodied Hugh. His loss will be felt right across the business community.”
“I want to extend my sympathies to Hugh’s wife Nuala and his children Eva, Fiona, Hugh, Gwen and Laura.”
“Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.”
Hugh Cooney will be laid to rest today, following a funeral mass in Foxrock at 11am.
It’s possibly someone showing off their capability before putting it up for auction. Like the Christmas Sony hack a couple of years ago
Here’s why this wasn’t a nation state actor. Let’s take a look at an excerpt from the log of the Firewall on my Home Router: (IP’s truncated)
Oct 22 16:26:30: [Minor] Port Scan is detected (186.244.206.xx:15314->109.255.xx.yy:23 TCP) from module Firewall
Oct 22 16:28:07: [Minor] Port Scan is detected (83.21.5.xx:63112->109.255.xx.yy:9999 TCP) from module Firewall
Oct 22 16:28:04: [Minor] Port Scan is detected (93.171.199.xx:11943->109.255.xx.yy:23 TCP) from module Firewall
My router (and yours) is scanned thousands of times a day, looking for open ports through which they can connect to webcams, home alarm systems etc etc. Not that they want to spy on you, or steal your stuff. That’s actually quite rare. Instead they will simply turn your devices into internet weapons that will send crafted queries designed to spam other machines, anywhere else on the Net.
It’s not the Russians doing this. It’s gangs of basement dwellers and malcontents. Much ado about nothing in terms of world politics. Be more worried about your shiny new Thermostat.
State sponsored hackers are “sitting in the basement” type hackers who are just employed, plus there’s a lot more of them, what are they on about? They’re really pushing this Russia thing! There’s a few videos of Putin talking to international journalists asking them to actually do their job and report on what’s happening because the U.S. Media are out of control. It’s a sad state of affairs when you get to this stage.
@Linda: Well yes Linda, but with the additional training, education and skill-set that comes with that. They don’t spend their lives scanning Virgin media IP blocks trying to hack home devices. They don’t care about DYN (the company hit yesterday) or their customers, by and large, or perform low grade nuisance attacks in general.
Instead they are busy doing the same thing to IP blocks belonging to infrastructure and governments.
Which is why I think we agree that this was unlikely to be nation state and even if it was Russia are no more likely to be guilty than China, Iran or North Korea if it was.
We agree. I think it’s least likely to be Russia anyway, if they really thought it was them they wouldn’t say it. I mean why this story and not the one where Putin is saying he doesn’t want to get into a war with the U.S but they have to stop moving their nuclear stuff over toward him? If there’s even a chance that the U.S. is trying to start a war, shouldn’t we know this before we worry about who fiddled with Twitter? They’ve done it before and they’re at it again.
This has F-Society written all over it…
I found the discrimination against me as a kid was very prominent, as one of the few vegetarian in school, I really understood how it felt to be frowned upon for being different. Other students would shout ‘winner winner, chicken dinner’ at me when they quite clearly knew I did not eat the low grade chicken there degenerate mum’s would make them scoff on a daily basis.
@Jaque H Doyle, winner winner, chicken dinner. How do you like your steak cooked ?
Someone putin on a show of power in support of his business friend, Trump?
So the US are saying that, at the moment, the Russians are the evil superior cyber power? It could be anyone really. Their tech companies have been farming out manufacturing, data handling and coding etc to the Far East and third world for years chasing the bottom line, so it shouldn’t surprise them if they’re open to both fair and unfair competition, underground practices and even attacks from anywhere in the world. Silicon Valley has the startup and investment gig but the technology is inherently wide open to bad intentioned talent everywhere.
Jasus I hope they don’t DOS attack Eircode… Pizza consumption would grind to a halt!!!
TBH these people bore me. If this is what makes you happy in life you really need to get a life it’s so much more fun!
Us testing the internet kill switch , before martial law is declared all communications will be severed !
Can’t be Anonymous, most of their hacker’s are actually in prison or simply not good enough, so that leaves the Chinese or the Russian’s? My money’s on the commies…
Eh they’re both commies…
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