Welcome to this week’s challenge of The Week in Drugs – a round-up of all of the happenings on this planet of Irish medication
Your correspondent is studying Useless as Doornails, the quite apt title of Anthony Cronin’s account of the writers and drinkers that based the establishment that now’s Bloomsday. Each June 16 – particularly in Dublin – persons are apt to don straw hats and Georgian apparel to have fun the good Irish novel that’s Ulysses, written by a person who hated the place, however by no means wrote about the rest.
Cronin’s e-book is all about Behan, Kavanagh, Myles na Gopaleen and the hard-drinking writers that turned their very own stereotype. The day begins with a visit with Tom Joyce (a relative of the good author) to the Martello Tower in Sandycove after which on to Davy Byrne’s pub on Duke avenue, however sadly, as a result of quantity of alcohol consumed, the group didn’t make the ‘as much as Monto’ or the ‘Nighttown’ district from the e-book. The try to recollect the good author turned an annual and extra respectable custom in time.
Dr Leslie O’Looney
However what struck me most about his account of Dublin within the Nineteen Fifties was the poverty and the toleration of alcoholism as a norm. He talks about Kavanagh – somebody whom he admired for probably the most half – who was so hooked on whiskey that he stored a naggin or ‘Child Energy’ below his pillow, in order that he may high himself up within the evening.
He wrote about how he had so perfected the approach, he may do it with out opening his eyes ‘ like a child’, and returning the dear bottle again to its resting place with out spilling s drop.
Behan – however – is the tragic showman, deteriorating and declining for all to see, angrily combating in opposition to, and concurrently striving towards, the dying of the sunshine.
At one stage within the e-book a painter, Robert Colquhoun, is talking to Cronin in London about Behan. “Was your grandfather an Irish seaman? And in Eire, is there something flawed about going to sea?”
“Not so far as I do know, “ Cronin replied, “Personally, I feel it will have been a really romantic avocation for him to have had. However why do you ask?”
Colquhoun replied that he had met Behan and he had ‘stuffed them with drink’ and disparaged Cronin from a peak for his poems, his prose and character however the principle accusation was that “Cronin’s grandfather was an Irish seaman”.
Between the drink and the Dublin accent Brendan was once more misunderstood. He was speaking about an R.I.C. man.
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At Trinity School Dublin’s conventional Stethoscope Ceremony final Friday, Professor Colin Doherty, head of the College of Drugs, warned that conspiracy theories and disinformation are eroding public belief in medication, making a disaster that threatens each sufferers and medical doctors.
Prof Colin Doherty
Talking to 500 third-year medical college students and their households, Prof Doherty mentioned the best problem going through as we speak’s medical doctors is ‘the sluggish degradation of the inherited belief that medical doctors have lengthy been conferred with’. Saying that belief has at all times guided medical professionals by tough scientific and ethical choices, it was now, he mentioned, below extreme assault from exterior forces.
Highlighting the unfold of misinformation, notably in the USA, Prof Doherty pointed to false claims that vaccines comprise microchips, trigger autism, or killed hundreds in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. “These lies are actually on the coronary heart of public well being debates,” he mentioned. “Systematic disinformation in public well being is the canary within the coal mine. That is what fascism seems to be like in our period.”
A marketing consultant neurologist at St James’s Hospital, Prof Doherty urged college students to recognise their position in resisting misinformation. “You are actually on the entrance line. You’re the resistance. At stake is the belief that’s conferred upon you. With out it, life as a physician is unattainable.”
Acknowledging the private challenges of medical coaching — from lengthy hours and exams to struggles with relationships or psychological well being — he reassured college students that almost all medical doctors discover fulfilment and pleasure of their careers.
He closed by urging graduates to hunt out each resilience and compassion. Docs, he mentioned, will usually be current at moments of sudden grief, and in these moments, the easy act of reaching out to households is among the most profound acts of care they’ll provide.
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Households, pals, and habit specialists will collect in Dublin this week to focus on the deep and widespread impacts of playing habit, in addition to the significance of accessible assist providers.
Hosted by Playing Care, the occasion will happen on Thursday, September 18, 2025, from 10.30am to 12.30pm within the Georgian Suite of Buswells Resort, Dublin 2. The panel dialogue will carry collectively service leaders, policymakers, and people with lived expertise to boost consciousness and promote restoration pathways.
Playing Care, a charitable fund that assists hundreds throughout Eire yearly, may also launch its 2024 Annual Report on the occasion, outlining the helps it gives to people and households affected by downside playing.
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To mark World Coronary heart Day on Monday September 29, CÚRAM Analysis Eire Centre for Medical Units primarily based at College of Galway and Croí, the Coronary heart and Stroke Charity will host a free screening of the most recent Science on Display screen movie, Counter Assault at Croí home, in Newcastle, Galway.
Directed by Tiernan Williams and produced by Maria O’Neill of Cluster Fox Movie, the movie explores heart problems from the affected person, researcher, paramedic and household perspective. The movie was produced below the Science on Display screen Training and Public Engagement Programme, a partnership between CÚRAM and Ardán working since 2015.
The movie options Kildare-based musician Frankie Lane, who suffered a coronary heart assault adopted by a cardiac arrest, Frankie’s spouse Anita Lane and Cork-based paramedic Pat McCarthy. The documentary additionally options CÚRAM’s College of Galway-based researchers, together with vascular surgeon Dr. Niamh Hynes who focusses on the physique’s largest artery – the aorta. Her analysis seems to be at predicting if, and when an aortic rupture will occur and, utilizing AI and machine studying, how we are able to construct pc fashions or ‘digital twins’ of aortas to grasp the rupture course of.
The screening might be adopted by a panel dialogue with among the movie’s contributors and an viewers Q&A.
Watch the Counter Assault trailer– https://vimeo.com/1098566020.
