EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we take a look at all the best comments left on the site by our readers over the past seven days.
This week there was a lot of talk about homelessness and the death of Jonathan Corrie, the cutting down of the Carrauntoohil cross, and pre-election party-political posturing.
So here are the standout comments from the week that was.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. While we debated the issues surrounding a video of the Carrauntoohil cross being cut down, Paddy Mac was thinking logistics, which 3,253 of you appreciated.
Must have been a serious extension lead!!
2. With the support of 2,185 green thumbs, Mick Tobin paid tribute to his partner Helen Taylor, who died last Thursday. You can read his comment in full below. Here’s an excerpt:
Helen was my beautiful, brave and inspirational partner. She fought for a year to get those lungs!!!You have taken a piece of my heart with you but you have given me the most perfect little boy anyone could ask for, and have made me such a better person.
3. John B’s criticism of a Republican official who had a go at President Obama’s daughters got the approval of 1,998 of you:
Wow, reading prayers for many hours helped her realise how hurtful her comments were?
A typical sign of how some people consider themselves religious by virtue of prayer and attendance at service/mass and yet lack even an ounce if humanity.
4. Maria Devenny got loads of appreciation and 1,741 green thumbs, for this funny and heart-warming remembrance of her mother:
Was on a girly/boozy weekend in Edinburgh one time, left the bloody car keys in the hotel in Edinburgh…
Had to be in work in limerick at 8am next morning.
Rang my mam in Thurles, who drove to my place in limerick for spare key, then brought them up to me in Dublin airport.
So she had roughly a couple hundred miles round trip.
Fairly sound thing to do. She laughed at us for being such clowns.
She was diagnosed with cancer 10 weeks later & died 7 weeks after that.
Be grateful for your mammies any of ye still have them.
5. It turns out we love telling funny stories about our mams and the “mam stuff” they do. Evelyn D’Arcy got 1,679 green thumbs for this one:
Rang me at Electric Picnic to get me to check if my brother was wearing a sun hat.
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. Poll: Will you vote for Sinn Féin in the next general election? (466 comments)
2. Video of the Carrauntoohil Cross being cut down sent to journalists (430 comments)
3. Kenny: SF would ‘absolutely wreck’ economy. Adams: Resign and ‘let the people decide’ (322 comments)
4. Enda Kenny was on the streets talking to homeless people last night (285 comments)
5. “God’s Plan for Marriage” is being distributed to 1,300 parishes ahead of referendum (277 comments)
The big issues
The tragic death of Jonathan Corrie left many of us deeply affected, and your comments reflected that.
Johnny Norton, who knew Jonathan, mourned the loss of his pal with a moving tribute, which you can find in full here:
Jonathan Corrie was a good friend of mine who I have known for 5 years. I got to know him because he spent some of his time near places I worked and I often sat with him and had a drink or something to eat.He arrived back to Ireland from the states and never managed to find his feet in this country again. He tried very hard to get off the streets but the longer he spent there the harder it got.I saw it with my own eyes that he never gave up. He never bothered anyone and never complained about being moved on by the Guards. He didn’t want to cause trouble for anyone.He was often robbed for his money and beaten up by people but it never broke his spirit and he was always an absolute gentleman to everyone who offered to help and everyone who didn’t.I hope his tragic death will make changes for other people in his situation. He would be glad to know that he made a difference and that he highlighted the issue in the media.I’m very sad to find out I won’t meet my pal again and I hope he has finally found peace wherever it is he has ended up tonight.You will be missed. RIP Jonathan.
Paul Doyle had some home truths of his own to share regarding the homelessness debate sparked by Jonathan’s death this week:
Most of us are, if we’re honest, hypocrites when it comes to stories like this poor man’s.We go “Ah God RIP” and then walk on by without a sideways glance at the next man we see in a doorway.99.9% of us will have forgotten this man’s name by this day next week. I can’t say or think of what we could do as individuals to help but there has to more than turning the other way..
Laugh of the week
In a discussion about the food Irish emigrants miss the most, John Rowan shared this perfect little nugget of Irishness:
While serving with the army in Lebanon, my mother used to post me over the Carlow Nationalist every week, all tightly wrapped around two packets of Tayto!They were powdered by the time I got them, but I still loved them.
Standout comments of the week
Cystic Fibrosis sufferer Helen Taylor died last Thursday.
We had spoken previously with her family about the need for organ donation, and on Monday her partner Mick Tobin privileged us with one of the most moving comments we’ve had in a long time:
Helen was my beautiful, brave and inspirational partner. She fought for a year to get those lungs!!!You have taken a piece of my heart with you but you have given me the most perfect little boy anyone could ask for, and have made me such a better person.I love you so much and if it’s the last thing I do I will make sure no family goes through what we have been through, ever again, in your memory.Please, guys, carry an organ donor card but make sure you have the conversation with your family – this is the most important part!!Gone but NEVER forgotten…RIP.
Catherine Maycock added some touching words for Helen’s family.
When I have come to the end of the road,
And the sun has set for me.
I want no rites in a gloom filled room,
Why cry for a soul set free.
Miss me a little,but not too long,
And not with your head bowed low.
Remember the love that we have shared,
Miss me, but let me go.
For this is a journey we all must take,
And each must go alone.
Its all part of the masters plan,
A step on the road to home.
When your lonely and sick of heart,
Go to the family you know.
And bury your sorrow in doing good things,
Miss me.but let me go…..When I lost someone to suicide, this little poem gave me comfort, and I am not a religious person. Its just a lovely verse of c omfirt. May you rest in peace
Last weekend, Donal Moloney took us on a tour of Limerick’s former ‘lunatic asylum’. Local woman Catherine Sims had a personal story.
This is extremely upsetting to me to see these pictures. My great aunt was admitted there in her teens and died there in her 70s . She was ” put in” by my grandmother as she was flighty and Couldnt ve controlled. While our family had t been able to get to the bottom of the reasons of her admittance the rumours range from having a child out of wedlock that the fathers family kept and raised or that she ran naked through the garden once. Either way she was admitted and promptly forgotten about . No one knew she existed. My father found out by accident in his teens when he did some work there and met her. He was warned by his very cold and iften cruel mother to never go to see her again. Then my oldest cousin discovered she was there and started to visit her. Her father went berserk but she still went . At her funeral she described how my fra mother was in floods of tears at the death of her sister. This angered my cousin no end as my grandmother lived across from ” the mental home” all her life and never once crossed the road to see her sister.my own sister got her records or what was left if them in recent years. She was a quite lovely woman who made trips out to town in later years accompanied by a nurse. There wasn’t any obviously severe mental health issues that anyone could see from meeting her or in her records. It was just so very sad and a waste of a lively life. I didn’t want to see where she lived and died. It’s upsetting. I never met her as she died in the late 1970s when I was a child but she haunts me
See any good comments? Send them on to dan@thejournal.ie
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