News
Preparing for Boston Mayor’s return ‘home’ to Connemara
Peter O’Malley is painting – upstairs and downstairs. He is expecting visitors, but not strangers. Many of the visitors, including the man who will be the centre of attention, have been here many times before.
But this time it will be different. It is guaranteed to be an occasion of colour; the flags will fly – Irish and American. The Mayor of Boston is coming. It will be summer – the month of May.
Peter O’Malley is an uncle of Marty Walsh, on the Mayor’s mother’s side. He keeps the old family home in Ros Muc alive and sparkling. He divides his time between Ros Muc and Boston. Now, as springtime finally beckons down by a quite by road in the townland of Ros Cide, Peter is preparing the way. This will be the main abode for Mayor Marty Walsh when he spends a week in Connemara – his “homecoming” after his historic victory in the Boston Mayoral contest last November.
“Our pride in Martin’s victory here in the parishes of Ros Muc and Carna knows no bounds,” says Peter.
“His late father, John Walsh was from Callowfeenish in Carna and his mother – my sister, Mary – is from here in Ros Cide in Ros Muc. She will be coming back here with him. In the midst of all this there is a sadness too; the Mayor’s father, John, is no longer with us. He would have been such a proud man coming home to his native Carna and Connemara this May”.
Peter O’Malley is often referred to as the Mayor’s right-hand-man. He plays that down.
“Look, there were hundreds and thousands who fought a massive campaign to elect Marty Walsh as Mayor of Boston – I did a bit myself”.
That is putting it mildly. Peter must have been privy to most of the decisive moments in the campaign: he drove Marty over a number of months all across the city of Boston at all hours. They talked a lot. Peter must have heard a lot of interesting conversations? He laughs “I did” in response to that question.
He expands a little on that: “Well, many conversations are about the campaign but some stuff is private and it stays like that. The candidate must trust you”.
Peter says this was one of the issues taken into consideration when Mayor Walsh appointed Police Sergeant Winnie Cotter as his driver. She is the Mayor’s first cousin on his father’s side – a daughter of the late Kate Walsh-Cotter from Carna.
“A few questions were asked about that by the media but not much. Kate is fully qualified for the job; the Mayor trusts her. The Mayor has a detail of four policemen, whom he selected personally, for security cover; there is always at least one of them on duty wherever the Mayor is.”
Will members of his Boston security team be coming to Ros Cide and to Connemara?
“Well, I’d say that Winnie – Sergeant Cotter – will certainly be coming. Anyhow, her mother is from Carna. There may also be at least another member of the team in Ireland.”
Peter says that the Brendan O’Connor RTE television programme is looking for the Mayor.
“I think he will do that,” Peter says, “but I know that he wants to spend time around quietly as he always used to do. He has been coming here since he was a young lad; we must give him a chance to relax and take it easy, too.”
When Peter emigrated from Ros Muc in 1973, his little nephew Martin Walsh was five. He got to know the little boy in Savin Hill in Boston. But soon life took a rough turn.
“I knew this particular day that Martin was at the hospital but I did not think it was serious. Then somebody said we should go up there. I met my sister Mary – Marty’s mother – crying in the hospital.
“She said ‘Martin has cancer; it has spread’. I was shocked and I asked where was John – Martin’s father – and she said he was out in the car. I went out and John was bent down and I saw that he was saying the rosary. It was a shocking time”.
Marty fought it off and went on. Peter watched him make his way, despite other difficulties from time and time, until he became the First Citizen of Boston. Peter O’ Malley goes back across the Atlantic in a few weeks.
The next time he comes to the homely, freshly painted house in Ros Cide, the Mayor will be alongside him. Connemara people will reach out to welcome one of their own – Marty Walsh. And close by somewhere there will be a hardy and dapper man who runs marathons and cycles miles, the right-hand-man.
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
