Working Life: My first-ever audio recording was done with our local parish priest in Mayo
'My first-ever audio recording was done with our local parish priest in Mayo, when he interviewed myself and two classmates about our upcoming Confirmation. He played it at Knock Shrine over the loudspeakers. Fr Doherty was ahead of his time and recruited a few chatterboxes.
'I studied radio as part of a communications post-grad and had initially wanted to work in that area. After college, while working as a primary school teacher in Clondalkin, I volunteered at West Dublin Community Radio in Ballyfermot, where I conducted vox pops and interviewed teachers and young people for a radio show about education. I also covered news and local events, and it gave me great insight into marginalised groups within a community, often with limited resources.
'Like many, ambition and real life collided, and paid work led me down a different path, working with diverse and often marginalised groups — from ex-offenders to stabilised drug users. I found my way into the health service, specifically the then-Midland Health Board, where I worked with Traveller men and male adolescents as a health promotion officer.
'Today, I am still focused on promoting health, but now I work with a small communications team to promote and amplify health and wellbeing messages across a range of topics, using a variety of communication channels. We set up the HSE Talking Health and Wellbeing Podcast in 2023, for a trial run of 10 episodes — we recently released our 103rd episode.
'I host the podcast with two colleagues, Eamon Keogh and Noreen Turley. It's a platform that allows us to delve deeper into a range of sensitive matters of public concern, for example, mental health, obesity, vaping, alcohol, youth health, and men's health. The podcast gives the public a new way to engage with evidence-based health information.
'Communicating on behalf of the HSE through the podcast is incredibly rewarding. We have the privilege of speaking with fantastic experts, practitioners, and patients who generously share their stories and insights on a wide array of topics and policy areas.'
The HSE Talking Health and Wellbeing podcast produces weekly episodes, aiming to empower listeners and their families to achieve their full health potential
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Irish Examiner
25-07-2025
- Irish Examiner
Working Life: My first-ever audio recording was done with our local parish priest in Mayo
'I grew up with the radio always on in the background: Sunday Miscellany, Radio 1 news, and radio documentaries were often the springboard for conversations between my parents. 'My first-ever audio recording was done with our local parish priest in Mayo, when he interviewed myself and two classmates about our upcoming Confirmation. He played it at Knock Shrine over the loudspeakers. Fr Doherty was ahead of his time and recruited a few chatterboxes. 'I studied radio as part of a communications post-grad and had initially wanted to work in that area. After college, while working as a primary school teacher in Clondalkin, I volunteered at West Dublin Community Radio in Ballyfermot, where I conducted vox pops and interviewed teachers and young people for a radio show about education. I also covered news and local events, and it gave me great insight into marginalised groups within a community, often with limited resources. 'Like many, ambition and real life collided, and paid work led me down a different path, working with diverse and often marginalised groups — from ex-offenders to stabilised drug users. I found my way into the health service, specifically the then-Midland Health Board, where I worked with Traveller men and male adolescents as a health promotion officer. 'Today, I am still focused on promoting health, but now I work with a small communications team to promote and amplify health and wellbeing messages across a range of topics, using a variety of communication channels. We set up the HSE Talking Health and Wellbeing Podcast in 2023, for a trial run of 10 episodes — we recently released our 103rd episode. 'I host the podcast with two colleagues, Eamon Keogh and Noreen Turley. It's a platform that allows us to delve deeper into a range of sensitive matters of public concern, for example, mental health, obesity, vaping, alcohol, youth health, and men's health. The podcast gives the public a new way to engage with evidence-based health information. 'Communicating on behalf of the HSE through the podcast is incredibly rewarding. We have the privilege of speaking with fantastic experts, practitioners, and patients who generously share their stories and insights on a wide array of topics and policy areas.' The HSE Talking Health and Wellbeing podcast produces weekly episodes, aiming to empower listeners and their families to achieve their full health potential Read More What are the hidden health risks of zero and low-alcohol drinks?
Irish Examiner
11-07-2025
- Irish Examiner
Paws for thought: How a furry friend can help your family's health
FERGUS SHANAHAN, founder of the APC Microbiome Ireland research centre in Cork, was intrigued when he came across a series of photographs of Irish Travellers in a 2016 National Geographic magazine. Looking at the striking portraits, he was struck by the number of animals living amidst the Traveller families. It gave him an idea for a new study. 'There were a lot of animals — dogs, cats, ferrets, and always horses,' he says. Shanahan decided to try to characterise the gut microbiomes of more than 100 Irish Travellers and compare them with those of people in Ireland, Britain, the US, and Canada living more modern lifestyles. When his study was published in 2020, the results jumped out. 'The Traveller microbiome was more akin to what you see from hunter-gatherer tribes in Tanzania or Mongolian horsemen than the rest of the Irish population,' he says. Prof Fergus Shanahan, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at University College Cork and founding Director of APC Microbiome Ireland, the SFI Research Centre at UCC. Shanahan noted that indigenous communities from other countries in the study also lived in close quarters with animals. As he dug deeper into the data, he found that this constant animal exposure seemed to play a key role in their unique microbiome characteristics, more so than other possible explanations, such as diet. The diversity of their gut microbiomes particularly captured his attention because while Irish Travellers often experience poor physical and mental health, one area — directly linked to gut microbiome diversity — where they fare better than the rest of the population is their immune health. 'I ran a clinic for inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis for many years. Based on population averages, I should have seen 40 to 50 Travellers over the years, and I never saw one.' While one explanation could be that Travellers are often nomadic and can be reluctant to engage with the conventional health system, Shanahan says that this is unlikely to be the full picture. In his view, the apparent lack of Travellers presenting with very serious inflammatory bowel conditions suggests that they probably have better gut health than the average Irish person. 'As a socially marginalised ethnic group, it makes sense that they may not get to the attention of a doctor for things like asthma or allergies or eczema but it must happen if you've got Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis,' he says. 'Those conditions present with bloody diarrhoea, the symptoms are quite dramatic, and it's life-threatening.' It seemed to Shanahan that the Traveller microbiome was protecting them against these chronic inflammatory diseases and, somehow, animals were responsible. Puppy power While the concept of having pets is largely a modern phenomenon, humans have been domesticating and coexisting alongside animals for tens of thousands of years, and a growing amount of research worldwide is increasingly suggesting that our immune system has evolved to expect to see the presence of microbes from dogs, cats, cows, or horses. As a result, some scientists now believe that regular exposure to these bacteria throughout life triggers the immune system to develop in ways that are beneficial for our health, preventing it from going awry, as in the case of many autoimmune diseases, and attacking our own tissues. While you are unlikely to acquire any permanent microbial residents directly from your pet, Shanahan believes that animals can help transfer gut bacteria between different human household members. This increases the diversity of the gut microbiome, making it more stable and better able to withstand harmful pathogens from flourishing. 'We know that dogs can do this,' he says. 'If you and I are living in the same house and we both pet the dog, that is a way of receiving and transmitting microbes from each other.' Due to the benefits for the gut microbiome, enabling children to grow up around pets from the earliest stages of life, and even before birth, is increasingly viewed as particularly helpful for their immune development. Last month, a major new study found that growing up alongside a pet dog reduces the risk of eczema in children who are genetically prone to the condition. Children in the Amish communities of North America have previously been found to have significantly lower rates of allergies and asthma as a consequence of living in close proximity to animals. Similar trends have been seen in children who live on farms in Central Europe. APC Microbiome Ireland (APC) SFI Research Centre PI Liam O'Mahony who is a Professor of Immunology at the Dept. of Medicine and School of Microbiology, University College Cork (UCC). 'There have been some cool studies of kids growing up on these traditional Austrian farms where the cows are in the basement at nighttime, and they don't get allergies,' says Liam O'Mahony, professor of immunology at APC Microbiome Ireland. 'And, again, it's that traditional farming, interacting with animals, that seems to be important. The kids who grow up on more modern farms with more machinery and less contact with animals are far less protected.' Jonathan Hourihane, professor of paediatrics at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, points out that while pets are sometimes viewed as a potential source of allergies, this is much less likely to be the case if children are exposed to them within their first year of life. 'Exposure is generally now considered to be tolerising,' he says. 'The idea that you have to avoid something to prevent an allergy developing has been proven to be incorrect. We're meant to live with animals, and pets are part of normal family life. It's good for children's psychological and social health too.' Healthy outlook While caring for a pet can be expensive, it seems our furry companions can repay the investment in multiple unexpected ways. According to a new scientific review published earlier this year by psychologists in Australia, pet owners make fewer doctor visits per year. However, the evidence for whether they improve long-term mental health is inconclusive. The apparent immune benefits may further swing the dial in favour of pet ownership — but are there any particular dos and don'ts? According to O'Mahony, whether you choose to let your cat or dog sleep on your bed really comes down to personal preference. However, he says it's still generally important to maintain good hygiene practices and make sure that your animals are up to date with all their vaccine requirements. 'It is very important to keep pets vaccinated, wormed, and free from fleas as this protects your pet and you from dangerous pathogens and infectious diseases that can be very harmful,' he says. 'Likewise, with hygiene, a balanced approach is needed. 'We know excessive cleaning can be detrimental but there is a sensible minimum level that should be maintained, for example, correct disposal of poo in the bin is important to prevent disease.' And what about children who grow up without the presence of pets? Last year, a research group from Italy published data that suggests it may be possible to replicate some of the benefits by allowing them to regularly interact with animals in other settings such as zoos or during farm visits. In the study, in which children from homes with no pets were allowed to regularly pet horses under supervision, subsequent gut microbiome testing showed that their microbiomes began to produce more beneficial chemicals for immune health. It seems likely that having a pet at any stage of your life could yield all kinds of health benefits. 'While there is a critical immunological developmental window in early life where we think these microbial exposures have the most significant effects on the immune system, ' says O'Mahony, 'living with animals during adulthood remains important and will likely continue to provide immune health benefits.'
Irish Independent
03-07-2025
- Irish Independent
Fears Donegal hospital will be downgraded if rejected as location for surgical hub in favour of Sligo
The ongoing debate on Sligo University Hospital (SUH) being selected as the preferred option for a new surgical hub in the North West, with no consideration being given to Letterkenny University Hospital (LUH), was raised on Wednesday in the Dáil. It comes as Minister for State, Deputy Harkin stated on Highland Radio that the location of the surgical hub in Sligo was decided as part of a deal made during negotiations on the Programme for Government to secure support from the Independent TDs. Speaking on Highland Radio, Minister Harkin said, 'One of the things I was insistent on was that we had, what then was in the HSE business plan, described as a surgical hub for Sligo and I still support that.' Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said no decision has been made on the location of the surgical hub. HSE West and North West has submitted a business case supporting the implementation of a North West Surgical Hub. Within the business case, a greenfield site owned by the HSE in Sligo has been identified as a potential development location for a hub. However, Consultants and General Practitioners from Donegal have met with the Minister for Health to discuss Letterkenny University Hospital and the positioning of the surgical hub in the North West. The doctors believe that based on geography, population and demographics, day case numbers, staffing numbers and a range of other key metrics, the surgical hub should be at LUH. Speaking in the Dáil, Donegal Deputy Pearse Doherty said if the surgical hub is located in Sligo, LUH is at risk of losing the accident and emergency department and maternity services while the hospital could be downgraded to a model three hospital. 'We have heard from an unprecedented number of doctors, surgeons and consultants in Letterkenny hospital and they have told us that without the surgical hub there, they are at serious risk of losing accident and emergency services and maternity services within a short period. ADVERTISEMENT "That is why they and all the politicians in Donegal have come together and made it very clear that we need to see a surgical hub delivered in Letterkenny. "This would not be to the detriment of Sligo – we believe the north-west region has been left behind for far too long – but there has to be a location in Letterkenny,' said Deputy Doherty. Deputy Doherty called on the government to come clean and questioned if the Department ascertained whether there was any 'secret deal' in respect of the location of the surgical hub. 'That is news to us, the TDs who sat across the table from the Minister for about an hour and a half making the case for the surgical hub because the Minister will eventually be the person who decides on the location. "It is news to us, having sat repeatedly in meetings with the HSE arguing the toss about why the surgical hub should be in Letterkenny. "I am sure it was news to the 160-plus surgeons, consultants and doctors who signed the letter making very reasonable medical arguments for the locations. 'I want the Minister of State to come. That clarity is needed,' said Deputy Doherty. Deputy Pádraig MacLochlainn said the Donegal TDs are not asking for special treatment but are asking that citizens do not have to travel long distances for care that should be provided in their own community. 'We are asking that our emergency services not be allowed to collapse and that we have the necessary number of surgeons and consultants in Letterkenny University Hospital. "If there is to be only one surgical hub for the north-west region, a huge region extending from the top of Donegal down into Roscommon, I imagine, and that hub is not in Letterkenny, it will be a disaster for County Donegal and our services. "Those are not my words but those of the consultants.' Deputy MacLochlainn also raised that the number of permanent surgeons at LUH has reduced from six to three in a short period of time. "We cannot attract the level of surgeons we need. "If the Minister decides the surgical hub for the Northwest is in one place, Sligo, it is just a death knell. "It is extremely serious. I have never seen 171 doctors, consultants and GPs, sign a letter. I do not know anywhere in this State where this has happened. "That is how serious this is. "I will reiterate that we are not playing the game of divide and conquer. "Sligo, the north-west, Donegal and all of us deserve this. "There is an absolute unique case now for a surgical hub in Letterkenny and Sligo to be delivered at exactly the same time to have the quality of services our people deserve, to protect what we have and to protect our emergency services,' said Deputy MacLochlainn. Speaking on behalf of the government, Minister of State at the Department of Education and Youth, Deputy Michael Moynihan said no decision has yet been made on the location of the north-west surgical hub. "The Minister is taking time to consider and understand the situation in Donegal. "This includes engagement with local representatives, doctors and consultants. "I know she was due to meet some of them last night. She remains committed to positively engaging with everyone who is interested in delivering the best healthcare for the people of Donegal.' Deputy Moynihan said the Government is committed to the ongoing development of the hospital and has allocated significant resources to meet the needs of patients there, including an increase in the hospital's budget by 57% over the last five years. "I will take the points the Deputies raised back to the Department and seek clarification for them,' said Deputy Moynihan.
