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From pain ridden to art of healing
Lifestyle – Judy Murphy meets Ronah Corcoran, the woman behind a new yoga and wellbeing hub
Watching Ronah Corcoran nimbly bound up and down on yoga mats and cushions on the floor of her new wellness centre in the City’s Westside Enterprise Park, it’s difficult to believe that she once suffered from back pain so badly that she had to be taken by ambulance from her home because she couldn’t move.
A ten-year back problem was the reason that Ronah turned to complementary medicine after conventional methods, including muscle-relaxing drugs and physiotherapy failed to solve the underlying cause of a condition that had left her debilitated for a decade.
Reiki was the specific treatment that worked for her when it uncovered an emotional issue that needed to be addressed, she says.
Other factors in her life at the time were causing stress, and stress is a major factor in back problems but in Ronah’s case, there were more deep-rooted causes.
“It sounds corny but it worked,” is her claim for the Reiki.
Now, this woman, who has made Galway her home for more than 10 years after a lifetime spent abroad, is eager to share her knowledge via a new centre, the Amara Yoga and Wellbeing Hub, which opened just over a month ago in the Fiontarlann at Westside, just behind Dunnes Stores.
One of her aims is to help improve people’s mental health by offering a variety of therapies and workshops at affordable prices as she comes from a social services background, working with children and adults in crisis.
Ronah had always wanted to work in social care, she recalls; an early memory is of wanting to go to Africa to help the poor.
That desire may have stemmed from her own past, which sounds fascinating and also difficult.
Born outside of marriage, she was adopted as a child and lived in Dublin for her early years until the family moved abroad in 1978, to her mother’s homeland of Germany so that her father, the well-known composer Frank Corcoran, could take up a position in Hamburg – work for modern composers wasn’t exactly plentiful in Ireland at the time.
After some years there, they moved to America and then to Italy, where, as a young adult, Ronah based herself for almost a decade.
Constant travelling might sound exotic, but it made difficult for her to put down roots. In addition, her mother suffered from mental illness. And Ronah’s twin brother died when she was 15, although she says the loss was tempered by the fact that she was away at boarding school at the time.
All in all, it was an event-filled youth and when she eventually decided to attend UCD in her 20s after spending time working in restaurants and bars in Italy, she opted to study Psychology and Sociology. After graduating in 2000 she was employed by the HSE in Dublin, working with children in care, a job she loved but which was incredibly challenging, she says.
In her 20s, Ronah had begun to suffer back problems, which began with a slipped disc and became progressively worse.
She was on a lot of painkillers, she says, but not very successfully and so she began exploring other therapies.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
