GAA official urges caution on nights ‘out on the town’

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

GALWAY GAA County Children’s Officer Pat Monaghan is urging teenagers and young people not to let a friend become a tragic statistic by allowing them to become isolated or cut off from their group on a night out on the town.

Monaghan, a clinical nurse specialist in Children & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), says it is also important to highlight that not all drownings involving young people should be labelled as suicide as this is always not the case.

To this end, he cites a particular case that was brought to his attention recently. “It was an incident reported to me by two young girls who were on a night out and came out of a public house in Galway to have a cigarette and observed a young man climbing the railings at the waterways,” he begins.

“They immediately became alarmed and asked him where he was going? His response was ‘I am going to bed’. They intervened and coaxed him back. So, it was that split second – that moment – that they saved his life. They brought him back off the railings and he was intoxicated.

“He did not know where he was. He did not know his whereabouts, but he did say he was going to bed. They put him in a taxi and they took him home. They didn’t know him but they accompanied him home in the taxi. That was about two months ago.”

Monaghan notes that if the young man had not been caught in time, he would have drowned. The inquest would likely have returned an “inconclusive” verdict but the perception in his local community may have been of suicide. When, in fact, it would be more accurate to say it was alcohol related.

“Being involved in an organisation like the GAA, somebody has got to speak up. Behind the stats of the young people who have died were real people who went on a night out and never came home. I think that is a sad stat and it doesn’t stand up. In most cases, alcohol, or maybe even drugs, contributed.”

In terms of creating awareness, he says that social media has a considerable role to play. “We have got to call ‘stop’. This is not about me or you, it is about young people now helping each other and supporting each other a lot more than ever before when they go out socially.

“Young people are now so proficient in technology and have so many ways of getting the message out there. We want these young people to do this for themselves. This must reverberate through Facebook, Snap Chat and all channels of social media.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.