Declan Daly wasn’t supposed to take a penalty for Galway United in the final of the U-15 Oakham Cup in England earlier this month, when the decider between themselves and Manchester United went to spot kicks.
But he made no mistake from twelve yards as Galway United clinched a famous 4-3 win to lift the cup in a tournament which also featured the likes of England Schoolboys, New York City, Leicester, Norwich City, and a team from Dubai.
That joy was a long way from the start of the year, when Declan lay in a hospital bed in Dublin, hooked up to an intravenous drip as chemotherapy was pumped into his body after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Thankfully, his body responded brilliantly to the treatment, but rather than put it all in the past, he wants to share his cancer story to encourage people – and young men in particular – to check themselves regularly and, more importantly, to talk to someone if they find something wrong.
“November last year, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, it was a Monday, November 22,” says the student from St Mary’s College – or Coláiste Muire Máthair – who is starting Fifth Year next week.
“I was in school on the Friday before, I played a senior game for the school, and I had very bad pain in my back but I played the full game.
“The Saturday and Sunday, I was destroyed, I just couldn’t move, the pain was so bad in my lower back, so on the Monday I went to the doctor and they said ‘okay, you need to go to the hospital quick’ so I did, they did some tests and said ‘okay, you’ve got cancer’,” says Declan, who turns 16 next month.
“I knew there was something there, I had found something there before – now I know what it was, and it can happen to anyone.”
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.
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Galway In Days Gone By
History plays strange tricks with its heroes of war. But few of them survive to enjoy the peace which their prowess has won. Militarism always takes its toll and refuses to fit in with any known order of events.
It is devastating, cataclysmic. Yet Collins was no militarist. His death was brought about by this fact. He had fought England with a lion-hearted valour, and the conditions in which that hideous warfare was waged put a greater strain on the Chief of the Intelligence than any mere physical bravery on the field.
Yet he bore it all with native gaiety; for he had the heart of a Celtic lad and the courage of the noblest of our race. When communications with his comrades in the country were severed, when his colleagues were in jail or across the seas, when he, with a price upon his head, was hunted night and day, he kept the spirt that achieved victory alive; and today, the English “Daily Telegraph” is constrained to describe him as “the most implacable and dangerous foe we ever had”.
Knowing full well what that the initial peace kites sent up by England signified, he raised the cry, “let us get on with the work”.
“Had he been captured,” says the Telegraph, “history would have run in a different channel”.
Upwards of 160 students are applying themselves assiduously at the Spiddal Irish College this yar to the study of Irish. They are, for the most part, composed of teachers from various parts of the country and, under the tutorship of expert native Irish teachers, remarkable progress is in evidence.
An innovation which is bound to have a wholesome effect is in operation this year whereby students are prohibited from speaking English.
Last year, and at previous sessions, pupils in the beginners’ and intermediate classes were, to suit their own convenience, allowed to speak English, but at the present session it is completely dispensed with, and nothing is to be heard but the native language.
Practical application is an essential element in the acquirement of any language, and the prohibition of the Béarla at the Irish Colleges will have an advantageous reaction.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Connemara woman had both of her legs amputated in the space of a few hours to a rare blood condition after developing blood clots.
Eilis Conneely had to give up work as a healthcare assistant in the Aras Chois Fharraige nursing home four years ago because of the pain in her legs.
She underwent multiple tests and scans, but Eilis was unable to get any relief when medics diagnosed sciatica in her back.
Last February the native of Inverin was rushed into hospital by ambulance when she suddenly lost all sensation in her legs. Once she arrived at emergency department, she was immediately transferred to the surgical unit to remove blood clots.
Doctors discovered that Eilis, 41, has a rare blood condition that leads to extreme blood clots in her legs, cutting off blood circulation to the lower limbs.
Surgeons were successful in removing the clots from her upper legs but were unable to remove them in the lower half after three attempts.
Eilis’ son Thomas recalls that day: “We received a devastating phone call from mom’s surgeon telling us that she would have to have her left leg amputated below the knee. This was a huge shock for us and all of the family, but we accepted it because we just wanted her to be pain-free again.
“Unfortunately, a few hours after the first phone call, we received a second call informing us that she would have to lose her right leg below the knee and her left leg above the knee.”
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.
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Lifestyle – A company formed in 1996 to give people with an intellectual disabilities a chance to perform on stage, has broken every mould. Blue Teapot’s stage and film productions have won acclaim and awards and it’s making history again with the debut play of member Charlene Kelly. JUDY MURPHY learns more.
When Blue Teapot Theatre Company was established in the mid-1990s it was as a community arts group, giving people with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities an opportunity to be involved in performance.
That’s still at the heart of what Blue Teapot does, but few could have realised then that this tiny group would grow to become such a force in Galway’s arts world. A professional company made up of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) it has broken new ground and won many awards for its theatre and film productions.
Now, after delays and disruption due to Covid, Blue Teapot is embarking on its latest show, a co-production with the Abbey Theatre, which will open in the city’s Black Box Theatre next month.
Once more, the company is celebrating a first, as Into the Dark Woods was written by one of its members, Charlene Kelly, a talented actress and now playwright, who has a mild learning disability, with epilepsy.
It’s an unusual fairy tale about a friendship that develops between two young people with intellectual disabilities as they journey through a dark wood, having left their respective homes. The Prince (Kieran Coppinger) is the oldest in his family and should be heir to the throne, but his father, the King, is reluctant to allow this because of his son’s disability. So, the distraught young man leaves the gilded cage of his childhood, where he has been protected and prevented from making his own decisions all his life. Sharon (Jenny Cox), meanwhile, has been raised by her grandmother, who taught her to be independent and encouraged her to explore the world beyond her home.
“One of the big questions this play asks is about having the right to make your own decisions – it’s an interrogation of the dialogue between able and non-disabled people,” says Blue Teapot director, Petal Pilley who is directing Into the Dark Woods.
It all began a few years ago when Charlene was one of several Teapots – as they call themselves – who expressed an interest in writing.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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