News
Man who helped found the Order of Malta in Galway
Bernard Shapiro enjoyed a longer retirement than what most people spend in a job and by the time he had retired he had left two legacies in the city, having helped found the local Order of Malta branch and the Renmore Soccer Club.
OBITUARY
The popular, kindly gentleman passed away in December at the ripe old age of 95 in the Galway Clinic after a short illness. He had a surgical procedure a few weeks previously but had been recovering well at home. In fact, he had enjoyed great health throughout his long life.
He was full of beans and when he retired from his laboratory technician job with the HSE at the age of 65 in 1984, he poured his energies into tending to the family half acre garden in Renmore and to travelling with his wife, Dympna. Those trips included ones to Canada to visit two of their sons and one to Minsk in Russia to search for his roots.
His father, a Russian army man who had once taken part in a guard of honour for the then Tsar, walked into Maloneys pub in Woodquay and laid eyes on the landlord’s daughter, Ellen Maloney of Moycullen, and decided she was ‘the one’.
They reared their family in Abbeygate Street. Bernard was their only son. By the time he met the love of his live, Dympna, a Dubliner, he had already been one of the first 12 schoolboy recruits into the Order of Malta ambulance corps which was established in Galway in 1938 by Professor Conor O’Malley, an eye surgeon in the old Central Hospital, now UHG. Bernard was the last surviving member of that first group of recruits.
It was through the Order of Malta that he met his future wife. She travelled to Galway with her friend, who was a member of the Order in Dublin, to take part in First Aid Competitions and it was love at first sight. Then it became a serious correspondence between Galway and Dublin until they decided to tie the knot.
They were one of the first couples to move to Renmore, then one of the first housing estates in the city, where they reared their seven children.
When his sons started taking an interest in sport, he decided to set up a soccer club in their local community and he stayed with it for years and became the club’s lifelong president. He had played a bit of soccer himself but his interests were in rugby and rowing.
He was a great mentor to young people and in fact up until he died, he remained young at heart which meant there was no such thing as an age gap when you were in his company.
Bernard, or Ber or Bernie as some called him, became the Second Officer in charge of the Order of Malta in Galway and though he had long stopped ‘active duty’ with them, he kept a keen interest and attended functions and events.
He had worked for twenty years with the hospital lab before taking up a position with the HSE and his family remember him being called to duty in the middle of the night and an ambulance coming to pick him up.
Bernard took a keen interest in everything he did, whether it was raising his family, his job or his voluntary work with the Order and the soccer.
He had a hunger for life and always appeared to have loads of energy, which was inspiring and contagious. Some have described him as having the mind of a genius, a gifted mentor or a brilliant man but everyone seems to remember him as one of life’s true gentlemen.
On his retirement he poured his energies into their half acre garden but never got around to entering for any Tidy Towns Garden competition. His reason for gardening was for its own sake as it kept him busy and beautified a garden that had been used as a playing field by his growing family until they married and moved away; two of them to Canada, two of them to England while the remaining three set down roots in Galway.
He was also proud of his ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Bernard and Dympna had enjoyed almost 61 years of marriage. They celebrated their 50th anniversary with a party in the Ardilaun Hotel and last April marked their 60th in the Connacht Hotel around the corner from their home.
Fr Des Forde, PP of Renmore celebrated Bernard’s life at the Requiem Mass where afterwards the Order of Malta and the Renmore Soccer Club provided a guard of honour before his burial in the New Cemetery.
He is survived by his wife, Dympna, his children, Patrick, Bernard, Aidan, David, Ellen, Therese and Dympna as well as his sister Ida who lives in the UK, extended family and wide circle of friends.
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
