AN IRISH aid worker who died in an Ethiopian air crash which prompted the grounding of the entire fleet of Boeing 737-MAX aircraft has been posthumously honoured by the Irish Red Cross.
Micheál (Mick) Ryan (39), an engineer with the United Nations’ World Food Programme, was posthumously named the Humanitarian of the Year.
The Irish Red Cross also presented their Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr Mike Ryan from Sligo who has helped lead the global response to Covid-19 as executive director of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
However, the awarding of a posthumous honour to engineer Mick Ryan, who died in an Ethiopian Airlines tragedy on March 10 2019, proved very emotional.
December and Christmases in our Childhood
JOHN CORBETT presents a selection of memories of life in the Irish countryside during the month of December
Advent, as most of you know, is the four week period leading up to Christmas. In the early part of the century, it resembled Lent because people fasted and denied themselves luxuries when it arrived. References to this can be found in Patrick Kavanagh’s poem entitled Advent in the following lines:
Where dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child’s soul…
Fasting, eating dry bread or drinking black tea didn’t happen locally in our childhood but Advent was regarded as an opportunity to prepare for the coming of Christmas, which was considered to be the most important period of the year.
Chelsey Thompson was set to study nutrition and dietetics at university when a gap year decision propelled her life in the opposite direction. Ms Thompson spent her gap year at the Royal Australian Air Force base in Amberley as an aviation and support technician working among super hornet jets within No. 1 Squadron. After I finished the gap year, they give you a choice of whether you wanted to stay in the defence force or leave, the former St Patrick s College Mackay student said. I decided I had more passion for the air force. I just cancelled my university degree (and) I transferred over to the Australian Defence Force Academy.
Skryne pay tribute to the late Sean Smyth
December 13, 2020
The late Sean Smyth
The Parish of Skryne and particularly Skryne GFC were plunged into mourning this week on hearing of the sad passing of Sean Smyth (Skryne) after an illness borne with typical determination and without complaint.
Sean is a former Chairperson of Skryne GFC and was instrumental in a tremendous amount of the improvement work carried out at McManus Park over a long number of years. As far back as 1981 Sean, along with his Committee, set about a major reconstruction of the playing surface on the pitch to include ploughing, levelling, draining and reseeding which also included increasing the size of the playing area to bring it up to a par with any inter county venue in the country. It has stood the test of time and is still one of the best around right up to this day.