Awards can lose their lustre without a wall to hang them on

Date Published: {J}

On a list of things that a homeless man might feel he needs, surely a hero’s plaque to hang on his non-existent wall is right up there at the top of it.

But that’s what Ireland’s media pack gathered to witness on Dublin’s O’Connell Bridge last week as John Patrick Byrne accepted a Compassionate Citizen Award from ARAN, the Animal Rights Action Network, for jumping into the Liffey after his pet rabbit, Barney the bunny.

You really couldn’t make this stuff up.

It goes without saying that throwing a homeless man’s rabbit into the river is one scummy thing to do, but leaping into the Liffey after it isn’t the height of cleverness either.

Nor indeed is buying a bunny in the first place when you don’t have a hutch of your own, given that – by his own admission – it seriously reduces your chance of a bed indoors.

But we all make our choices and we have to stick with them. You might call it making your bed and lying in it, but that’s not even ironic.

However, while a love of animals can be all-consuming to the point of obsession, presenting a wall hanging to a man with no walls is just plain stupid.

It’s like giving football boots to a legless man or a digital camera to Stevie Wonder – or a post office savings account to Bertie Ahern.

Granted, the addition of a supply of carrots for Barney and food for John Patrick’s dog was a more practical solution, but a woollen jumper or a new coat might have been even more appropriate than a plaque.

After all you wouldn’t give a homeless man a hanger for the aforementioned coat – so why a framed bravery award without a hook to hang it on?

It also transpired that our homeless hero said he had been told a farmer from Tipperary had already offered him a job working with animals, and this offered the possibility of gaining his own home.

He said he would be happy to consider the offer even though he had a girlfriend and three children living in Ballyfermot, and ‘Tipperary is a bit far’.

Ignoring the fact that this 38 year old man has been homeless for the last 22 years but has a girlfriend and three children who aren’t, he is indeed quite right to see Tipp as a long trek from O’Connell Bridge – unless, of course, you’re in the casino business and Michael Lowry could be persuaded to give you a lift.

By any stretch this was a bizarre publicity exercise, compounded only by the scrum of a compliant press posse who didn’t even question the sheer idiocy of the entire charade.

A homeless man with two dogs and a rescued rabbit now has a bravery cert to keep out the chill of winter. And good luck to him because life won’t get any easier when the cameras disappear.

He might get some use for his framed award if some thug throws Thumper into the wash again – because he could always break it over their trick head.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.