Latest news with #Méabh
RTÉ News
29-05-2025
- Automotive
- RTÉ News
'This can happen to you too', warns young woman injured in road crash
A two-day Safer Roads conference is taking place in Killarney, Co Kerry, drawing on experts from across Europe in the areas of road design, engineering, policing, enforcement, technology and education. The conference will explore how artificial intelligence, and analysis of road collision trends and statistics can be used to improve road safety. Almost 300 delegates and speakers, including a young woman who was badly injured in a road collision nine years ago, will attend the event. Paschal Sheehy spoke to the 20-year-old about the impact of the crash on her life. Méabh White has just finished her second year of pharmacy studies, almost a decade after she suffered severe injuries in a car collision. She is 20, going on 21. She is studying at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, and is looking forward to a bit of free time over the summer. At least some of that time will be spent with her family in Co Roscommon - with her mum, Clodagh, and younger brother and sister, Rían and Sadhbh. A decade is a long time in the life of a young person and almost ten years ago Méabh's life was changed forever, in a matter of seconds. On 9 July 2016, Méabh was on her way to a birthday party. Her mum was driving with Méabh in the front passenger seat and Rían in the back of the car in a rear-facing child seat. At a crossroads half a kilometre from their home in Kilteevan, Co Roscommon, they were involved in a collision with another vehicle and their Renault Scenic was propelled through a 2m wall into a field. Méabh suffered the most severe injuries. She had a cracked skull and intercranial haemorrhages, a fractured C1 vertebra in her neck, and she broke her back and pelvis. Méabh was transferred by helicopter to University Hospital Galway and from there to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin. She spent three days on life support and a week-and-a-half in intensive care. When she finally woke up, Méabh was on a spinal board, staring at the ceiling. Her mum was still in hospital in Co Galway, being treated for serious, but non-life-threatening injuries. Rían escaped serious physical injury. His rear-facing car seat - fitted only four days before - probably saved his life. Méabh was watched over during this time by her grandmother, Teresa, in St Gabriel's Ward in Temple Street. "I just remember saying to her, 'is this all I'm going to be able to see - the ceiling, am I ever going to be able to see anything else again?'," she said. At that time, Méabh was under the care of consultant neurosurgeon, Muhammad Sattar. He told her there was no medical reason to explain why she woke up. 'This kind of stuff can happen to you' Méabh said it was a year or so before she started to return to herself. Initially, she used a wheelchair as she had to learn to walk again. Then, there were the mental scars that had to heal, that took time too. Today, Méabh is looking forward to enjoying the coming summer with her family. She embraces life with both arms. And, when she has time in her busy schedule, she addresses road safety. "I do it because there are so many teenage road deaths, so many young people dying on our roads," Méabh said. She said: "They think they are titanium, they don't understand that this kind of stuff can happen to you, even if you aren't in the wrong. "I was 12. I had my entire teenage years permeated with pain, permeated with the legal aftermath of the crash, the trauma, the physical injuries. "I felt I was living two separate lives, because obviously I was a teenager and there is so much to being a teenager without that on the side." Méabh is due to attend the two-day Safer Roads conference in Killarney, Co Kerry, that is being held today and tomorrow. The conference is not open to the public. Instead, it is drawing on experts from across Europe in the areas of road design, engineering, policing, enforcement, technology and education. The conference will explore how artificial intelligence, and analysis of road collision trends and statistics can be used to improve road safety. Almost 300 delegates and speakers are attending the event, which is being hosted by Kerry County Council. "Road safety is not just about the road or the vehicle but also about how technology, human behaviour, enforcement and education intersect to reduce risks and prevent accidents," Kerry County Council's Road Safety Officer Declan Keogh said. "Every branch of the road safety tree is represented and our main aim is to improve road safety for every road user," he added.
RTÉ News
28-05-2025
- Automotive
- RTÉ News
'This can happen to you', warns young woman injured in collision
A two-day Safer Roads conference is due to get under way in Killarney, Co Kerry, drawing on experts from across Europe in the areas of road design, engineering, policing, enforcement, technology and education. The conference will explore how artificial intelligence, and analysis of road collision trends and statistics can be used to improve road safety. Almost 300 delegates and speakers, including a young woman who was badly injured in a road collision nine years ago, will attend the event. Paschal Sheehy spoke to the 20-year-old about the impact of the crash on her life. Méabh White has just finished her second year of pharmacy studies, almost a decade after she suffered severe injuries in a car collision. She is 20, going on 21. She is studying at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, and is looking forward to a bit of free time over the summer. At least some of that time will be spent with her family in Co Roscommon - with her mum, Clodagh, and younger brother and sister, Rían and Sadhbh. A decade is a long time in the life of a young person and almost ten years ago Méabh's life was changed forever, in a matter of seconds. On 9 July 2016, Méabh was on her way to a birthday party. Her mum was driving with Méabh in the front passenger seat and Rían in the back of the car in a rear-facing child seat. At a crossroads half a kilometre from their home in Kilteevan, Co Roscommon, they were involved in a collision with another vehicle and their Renault Scenic was propelled through a 2m wall into a field. Méabh suffered the most severe injuries. She had a cracked skull and intercranial haemorrhages, a fractured C1 vertebra in her neck, and she broke her back and pelvis. Méabh was transferred by helicopter to University Hospital Galway and from there to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin. She spent three days on life support and a week-and-a-half in intensive care. When she finally woke up, Méabh was on a spinal board, staring at the ceiling. Her mum was still in hospital in Co Galway, being treated for serious, but non-life-threatening injuries. Rían escaped serious physical injury. His rear-facing car seat - fitted only four days before - probably saved his life. Méabh was watched over during this time by her grandmother, Teresa, in St Gabriel's Ward in Temple Street. "I just remember saying to her, 'is this all I'm going to be able to see - the ceiling, am I ever going to be able to see anything else again?'," she said. At that time, Méabh was under the care of consultant neurosurgeon, Muhammad Sattar. He told her there was no medical reason to explain why she woke up. She explained: "He just said to me: 'God was good in this case'." 'This kind of stuff can happen to you' Méabh said it was a year or so before she started to return to herself. Initially, she used a wheelchair as she had to learn to walk again. Then, there were the mental scars that had to heal, that took time too. Today, Méabh is looking forward to enjoying the coming summer with her family. She embraces life with both arms. And, when she has time in her busy schedule, she addresses road safety. "I do it because there are so many teenage road deaths, so many young people dying on our roads," Méabh said. She said: "They think they are titanium, they don't understand that this kind of stuff can happen to you, even if you aren't in the wrong. "I was 12. I had my entire teenage years permeated with pain, permeated with the legal aftermath of the crash, the trauma, the physical injuries. "I felt I was living two separate lives, because obviously I was a teenager and there is so much to being a teenager without that on the side." Méabh is due to attend the two-day Safer Roads conference in Killarney, Co Kerry, that is being held today and tomorrow. The conference is not open to the public. Instead, it is drawing on experts from across Europe in the areas of road design, engineering, policing, enforcement, technology and education. The conference will explore how artificial intelligence, and analysis of road collision trends and statistics can be used to improve road safety. Almost 300 delegates and speakers are attending the event, which is being hosted by Kerry County Council. "Road safety is not just about the road or the vehicle but also about how technology, human behaviour, enforcement and education intersect to reduce risks and prevent accidents," Kerry County Council's Road Safety Officer Declan Keogh said. "Every branch of the road safety tree is represented and our main aim is to improve road safety for every road user," he added.
RTÉ News
28-05-2025
- Health
- RTÉ News
'Can happen to you', warns woman involved in collision
Méabh White has just finished her second year of pharmacy studies, almost a decade after she suffered severe injuries in a car collision. She is 20, going on 21. She has just finished second year pharmacy at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and is looking forward to a bit of free time over the summer. At least some of that time will be spent with her family in Co Roscommon: mum, Clodagh, and younger brother and sister, Rían and Sadhbh. A decade is a long time in the life of a young person and it is almost a decade since Méabh's life was changed forever, in a matter of seconds. On 9 July 2016, Méabh was on her way to a birthday party. Her mum was driving with Méabh in the front passenger seat and Rían in the back of the vehicle in a rear-facing child seat. At a crossroads half a kilometre from their home in Kilteevan, Co Roscomon, they were involved in a collision with another vehicle and their Renault Scenic was propelled through a two-metre wall into a field. Méabh suffered the most severe injuries. She had a cracked skull and intercranial haemorrhages, a fractured C1 vertebra in her neck, and she broke her back and her pelvis. Méabh was transferred by helicopter to University Hospital Galway and from there to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin. She spent three days on life support and a week-and-a-half in intensive care. When she finally woke up, Méabh was on a spinal board, staring at the ceiling. Her mum was still in hospital in Co Galway, being treated for her serious, but non-life-threatening injuries. Méabh's brother Rían escaped serious physical injury. His rear-facing car seat - fitted only four days before - probably saved his life. Méabh was watched over during this time by her grandmother, Teresa, in St Gabriel's Ward in Temple Street. "I just remember saying to her, 'is this all I'm going to be able to see the ceiling, am I ever going to be able to see anything else again?'," she said. At that time, Méabh was under the care of consultant neurosurgeon, Mohammad Sattar. He told her there was no medical reason to explain why she woke up. She explained: "He just said to me: 'God was good in this case'." 'This kind of stuff can happen to you' Méabh said it was a year or so before she started to return to herself. Initially, she used a wheelchair as she had to learn to walk again. Then, there were the mental scars that had to heal, that took time too. Today, Méabh is looking forward to enjoying the coming summer with her family. She embraces life with both arms. And, when she has time in her busy schedule, she addresses road safety. "I do it because there are so many teenage road deaths, so many young people dying on our roads," Méabh told RTÉ News. She said: "They think they are titanium, they don't understand that this kind of stuff can happen to you, even if you aren't in the wrong. "I was 12. I had my entire teenage years permeated with pain, permeated with the legal aftermath of the crash, the trauma, the physical injuries. "I felt I was living two separate lives because obviously I was a teenager and there is so much to being a teenager without that on the side." Méabh is due to attend the two-day Safer Roads conference in Killarney, Co Kerry, that is being held today and tomorrow. The conference is not open to the public. Instead, it is drawing on experts from across Europe in the areas of road design, engineering, policing, enforcement, technology and education. The conference will explore how artificial intelligence, and analysis of road collision trends and statistics can be used to improve road safety. Almost 300 delegates and speakers are attending the event, which is being hosted by Kerry County Council "Road safety is not just about the road or the vehicle but also about how technology, human behaviour, enforcement and education intersect to reduce risks and prevent accidents," Kerry County Council's Road Safety Officer Declan Keogh said. "Every branch of the road safety tree is represented and our main aim is to improve road safety for every road user," he added.
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Ripeness by Sarah Moss – a beautifully written novel of place and identity
Sarah Moss's post-Brexit novels, Ghost Wall, Summerwater and The Fell, have dealt centrally with the anxieties and hostilities of the white working and middle classes in contemporary Britain. This trio of short, vivid works has also quietly established Moss as a revered chronicler of the political present. Though Ripeness bears many of the hallmarks of her recent fiction – evocative descriptions of the natural world abound, no speech marks used, chapter titles plucked suggestively out of the narrative – it also departs from it. It is longer, slower, European in setting, and its political critiques are ultimately muted. Ripeness is structured in alternating narrative strands, both following an English woman called Edith: one as a septuagenarian living comfortably in the west of Ireland in the post-pandemic present, and another as a bookish, Oxford-bound 17-year-old travelling to Italy in the late 60s. These strands are initially connected by stories of babies given up. In the present, Edith's best friend Méabh is contacted by an unknown older brother who was adopted and raised in America and now wants to 'see where he comes from'. In the historical strand, Edith is travelling to help her older sister, a professional ballerina, pregnant with a child she will almost immediately relinquish. Together, a textured and affecting story about place and identity emerges. Early on we learn that Edith has four passports – English, Irish, French and Israeli – and that her French-Jewish mother was granted refuge in England in 1941 while her grandparents and aunt were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Edith's 'Maman', an artist and 'iconoclast' to her friends in rural Derbyshire, advised her to always 'leave before you're certain, because if you wait until you know, there are boots coming up the stairs and blood on the walls'. While her mother's migration was driven by genocide and trauma, and her grandparents before had fled Ukraine for France, she and her sister were able to travel freely around Europe, and the young Edith's only real concern was that 'the rising hemlines of the mid-60s had not reached the thigh of Italy'. But in the novel's present, military aggression is again forcing migration. Edith reflects on the cyclical nature of conflict, noting that the 'great grandparents of the people now fleeing Russian invasion and taking refuge here in the west of Ireland were the aggressors from whom her great-grandparents fled Ukraine'. A central tension is established when Edith discovers that while Méabh is sympathetic to their village's Ukrainian refugees, she is actively protesting at the use of a local hotel as emergency housing for African refugees. Edith is sickened and wonders briefly if she can remain friends with 'someone who thinks the problem is refugees'. Quickly she decides she can, though Méabh's position continues to trouble her. She supports her plans to meet her brother, but stews over her own belief that 'national identity isn't genetic, that blood doesn't give you rights of ownership', that 'Méabh's brother can't just come here and call it home, say he belongs, when nothing the Ukrainians do will ever entitle them to say such things, when the lads at the hotel aren't even allowed the air they breathe'. These convictions are not unconsidered, and Edith gives much thought to various claims to and erasures of identity – including the Jewishness of her unknown nephew, adopted by nuns, and her Maman's traumatic experiences of loss and migration. Yet, despite her personal connection to histories of genocide and displacement, her dismay at Méabh's position fades. Edith's convictions about 'blood and soil' logic are betrayed by her lack of reproach to Méabh, and the novel's shifts in narrative perspective allow us to view her critically. The chapters depicting the present are narrated in the third person, while those depicting Edith's trip to Italy are in the first person. While the latter invite us to see the world through her eyes, the former allow some detachment between Edith and the reader and emphasise her privilege, biases and uncertainties. Edith is also increasingly reflexive and self-deprecating, eventually describing herself as having 'remained more of narrator than a participant'. This evocative distinction between storytelling and action aligns with the novel's dual narrative, which both connects us to and distances us from this compelling and at times frustrating character. However, because of her increasing self-deprecation and reflection, and at least partial awareness of her mistakes, Edith is ultimately presented as sympathetic. Her flaws are human and relatable and by its conclusion, the gap that has opened between the novel's politics and its protagonist's views has shrunk. Just as Edith's dismay at Méabh's comments fades, the anger of Ripeness wanes too. But while its critiques of contemporary attitudes towards migration, and failures in historical thinking, and the ways some refugees are accepted while others are not, do lose some force, it remains a powerful and beautifully written story of family, friendship and identity. Ripeness by Sarah Moss is published by Picador (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
Daily Mail
27-04-2025
- Daily Mail
Doctors who have travelled to over 41 countries reveal how to avoid getting diarrhoea on holiday while still eating local food
A doctor duo with a passion for travel have shared expert advice to help holidaymakers avoid a common illness capable of ruining a dream trip: traveller's diarrhoea. For many globetrotters, sampling local food is one of the highlights of a trip abroad - but it can also come with unwelcome side effects: stomach upsets and frequent, loose stools caused by contaminated food or unfamiliar bacteria. But according to Dr Méabh and Dr Danny, a couple who've travelled to 41 countries in their van - yet have 'rarely' fallen ill - there's no need to miss out on delicious, authentic cuisine if you follow a few simple hygiene rules. The pair, who hail from Ireland and Scotland but have since settled in Australia, are known for documenting their adventures and health advice on their Instagram page, @celtsontheroad. In a recent video, which has since amassed over 24 million views, the couple claimed tourists can enjoy local food safely by taking a number of key precautions. They said: 'If you travel or speak to any travellers for a lengthy period of time, then the topic of traveller's diarrhoea will no doubt come up. 'You'll hear horror stories of travellers trying new foods only to spend the next week feverish and exploding out of both ends.' 'We're both doctors and we've travelled to over 41 countries combined. We eat local food everywhere we go, and we rarely get sick.' The pair claimed holidaymakers often tend to 'avoid local food, ice, salads, meat and fish,' while abroad, but they've insisted that it all boils down to implementing four crucial habits in hand hygiene to minimise the risk of getting traveller's diarrhoea. First, the couple highlighted putting trust into the locals, urging travellers to choose busy food spots with lots of local customers, which often signals good hygiene and fresh food. Next, they advised tourists to wash they hands before every meal, which is a simple yet effective way to prevent ingesting harmful bacteria. Their third tip is to avoid touching phones or money while eating, as phones and cash can carry germs that easily transfer to your food. Lastly, the pair stressed the importance of carrying antibacterial gel, as it can be used when soap and water are not available, especially in remote areas. They concluded: 'Don't be frightened by some old wives tales. Wash your hands, eat local and savour the experiences! Ps if you do get sick, probably best to see a doctor.' But the couple warned holidaymakers to be aware that there's 'always a risk of getting unlucky with unhygienically prepared food' and to bear in mind their advice regarding hand hygiene will not prevent other unrelated illness during a trip. In the comments, viewers expressed mixed reactions to the advice, as one person shared: 'Love that you had different advice on this! I also love eating locally and have yet to get seriously sick!' In the comments below the video, viewers expressed mixed reactions to the couple's advice Another wrote: 'I do the same! Also I eat in crowded places and I take probiotics just in case - I have sensitive intestine - and guess what. I have never been sick before.' A third commented: 'I was raised with lots of traveling and was always taught: eat at busy places and don't eat the most expensive items off the menu. 'These aren't chosen often, but have expensive products in them. The restaurant will save these ingredients as long as possible, so they're more likely to go bad.' However, one person warned: 'Note they said RARELY get sick, not NEVER get sick. Hand hygiene can only go so far when you're immune system is being exposed to a new immunizer. Sometimes that's just the way it is.' It comes as two gut experts revealed the essential two foods travellers must eat on every holiday to avoid 'travel tummy.' Many people get sick while travelling the world for a variety of reasons, including dehydration and changes in diet. But don't fear, as twins Lisa and Alana McFarlane, who created The Gut Stuff, are on hand with expert advice. From the snack you must pack in your suitcase to the food that can cure constipation, here are Alana and Lisa's tips for how to avoid running to the toilet instead of the all-inclusive buffet on your next trip abroad.
