Political World
The stages of sleep to console an insomniac
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
It was Christy Moore – back of the glory days of his Delirium Tremens – who once sang of petitioning St Anthony with the offer of a tenner to help him find some sleep.
We’ve all been that soldier, who’d give a lot more than ten quid if only we could clear our heads of the stupid thoughts and worries and get a bit of kip.
But the harder you try to will yourself to slumber land, the less chance it has of ever happening.
The awful irony is that the people who most think about sleep are the people who get to enjoy it least – the insomniacs who spend half the night trying in vain to doze off.
They stare at the ceiling with the thoughts swirling around in their addled brain, counting thousands of sheep like Larry Goodman once counted cattle crossing back and over the border; willing sleep on themselves – and then finally dozing off just minutes before the alarm rings to herald a new day.
When you think about it – and this line of thought is the preserve of those who are involuntarily wide awake at four in the morning – there’s a life cycle to sleep that you cannot buck.
You start out with the sleep of the innocent; the new born baby who does nothing more than cry when they’re hungry and sleep when they’re tired – or when you overdose them on gripe water.
Then they graduate to the sleep of the just; the rest enjoyed by children who can’t help themselves slipping quietly into the land of nod where they dream of princesses or superheroes who live in castles, and the world is truly at peace.
Because they have nothing to worry about, other than the monsters under the bed – no mortgages, electricity bills, college fees, rows at work that keep the rest of us tossing and turning between the sheets.
Then come the teenage years when that sleep pattern changes and they spend every night balking at going to bed and every morning refusing to get out of it – particularly if the only reason for getting up is to go to school.
There is only one solution to this and financial considerations ensure it’s not open to everyone – you have to move to a friendlier time zone where you’re getting up in the morning, only it’s midday at home, and you go to bed at a reasonable hour, except it’s one in the morning Irish time.
Following on from teenage sleep is the sleep of the inebriated – a state of slumber induced by alcohol which may render your eyes closed and your mouth wide open, but will never leave you refreshed in the morning.
There are other characteristics that characterise this phase as well – the snore, for example, that not alone keeps the rest of house awake but can actually wake yourself up, such is the strength of it.
And there’s the dribble, the result of dozing off in the armchair with your head tilted forward so that you wake with a shallow puddle of drool down your good top.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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