First this morning, Gavin shared the story of East Clareman Ignatious O'Riordan. From Killaloe, but living in Kilkishen, the 47 year old dad of three lives with constant back pain following an accident 14 years ago. In 2007, to help him deal with this, he was fitted with what's called a spinal cord stimulator which gives him some relief, but that internally-fitted device has now run flat and to fix it requires an operation.
First this morning, Gavin shared the story of East Clareman Ignatious O'Riordan. From Killaloe, but living in Kilkishen, the 47 year old dad of three lives with constant back pain following an accident 14 years ago. In 2007, to help him deal with this, he was fitted with what's called a spinal cord stimulator which gives him some relief, but that internally-fitted device has now run flat and to fix it requires an operation. It has been out of service for nearly a year, a year in which Ignatious has had to live with intolerable pain – the last time the battery died, he told me, he had to go without it for two-and-a-half years but now he's finding it next to impossible to cope. Gavin met Ignatious and his wife Caroline in their home in Kilkishen yesterday . Ignatius began by telling Gavin what life is like.
Met Éireann has issued two weather warnings for several parts of the country. Storm Barbara is set to pass over Ireland this weekend. The forecaster has issued a status orange wind warning for coastal regions and high ground in Donegal, Galway and Mayo. Winds will reach up to 75 kilometres an hour on Friday, with gusts as high as one hundred and twenty. While a status yellow wind warning is in place for the rest of the country – with gusts reaching one hundred and ten kilometres. Gavin was joined on the line by Siobhán Ryan from Met Eireann.
They can't park, they're easily distracted. They've got no patience behind the wheel. We've all heard the clichés about female drivers. But, as you've been hearing on Clare FM News, the figures show that women in this county may actually be better drivers than men. New CSO figures show that male drivers in the Banner County were given more penalty points last year. While one in eleven men here received penalty points in 2015, the figure for women was one out of every 14. Don Barrett is a driving instructor with the Ennis School of Motoring. Fiona McGarry spoke to him about his experience of coaching both sexes and began by asking him in the figures on penalty points came as a surprise to him.
After this we had Dr Máire Finn from the Ennis Family Medical Centre answering questions from the 4th class pupils of Cloughleigh National School.
Following that Gavin spoke with Pat Shortt.
Once again we are congratulating the achievement of another Clare native. John Lee, an Ennis man and accomplished artist was recently short-listed for the Hennessy Portrait Prize, there were 14 chosen out of 400 and their work will be exhibited in the National Art Gallery in Dublin until March 2017. John joined Gavin live in studio to tell us more.
To finish the show we had our year in review panel, panelists were Tony Kileeen, Former Minister for Defence, Kilnaboy, Patricia McCarthy, Former Clare Councilor, Shannon, and Michael Vaughan, Lahinch Hotelier, Former President of the IHF. Topics discussed were international news, domestic news, predictions for 2017 and people of the year.
