One last look back at an awful night but time now to move on

It’s the time of year and that type of weather when I can scarcely remember the last time I sat down to premeditatedly watch a programme on television . . . that is until a night last week. The long evenings . . . the list of so-called chores that seem to present themselves to us country boys during the Summer . . . and nearly a sense of guilt at sitting down in front of ‘a box in the corner of a room’ when the sun doesn’t sleep until well after 10pm . . . all contribute to a TV free zone in my life at this time of the year.
Even the World Cup final, a sporting occasion that I’d like to set aside as a ‘must watch’ event, fell by the wayside on Sunday week last, clashing as it did with the meeting of Galway and Kerry in the Super 8s at Croke Park, and of course both events started at precisely the same time.
Anyway, last Thursday night with an hour ‘to kill’ while on one of those late night parental taxi duties and with the benefit of the RTE One +1 option on Saorview, I sat through another regurgitation of quite a sordid and shocking so-called ‘night out on the town’ that went so horribly wrong in Belfast during the Midsummer of 2016.
Maybe it’s that little bit of a voyeuristic tendency that’s in us all, but once you start watching a programme like that, it’s nearly impossible to leave it, even if its contents were quite a run-of-the-mill rehash of what we had all read through and listened to last Spring, ironically as Ireland’s historically successful rugby season was in full swing.
Two Irish rugby players (now former players), 26-year-old Paddy Jackson and 25-year-old Stuart Olding were charged with raping a 19-year-old woman at Jackson’s house in Belfast on June 28, 2016. Another rugby player, Blane McIlroy faced an exposure charge, while a fourth, Rory Harrison, was charged with withholding information relating to the events of that night. All were found not-guilty.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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