I’m 100% with the snakes on Paddy’s Day – get me out of here!
ILOVE a good parade. I always have. From the day I dressed up as former Irish rugby captain Ciaran Fitzgerald to take part in my hometown parade in Loughrea at around five years of age, I was smitten with the pageantry.
The Dublin parade was something always I watched in awe from the couch as we, in two channel land, marvelled at the epic scale of the annual event. Whether it was the marching American bands with their twirling batons and immaculate brightly-coloured uniforms with gold braid and polished shoes, or the Macnas floats with their giant papier mache heads and storytelling dancing giants — it just brought you into the wonderland of your imagination.
The grand marshals always looked proud as punch as they were ferried down the road on an open-top car, beaming and waving at the honour bestowed on them.
This year, Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham has been bestowed with the honour. The East Wall native — who plays Davos in the long-running hit HBO series — will lead this year’s Festival Parade through the capital from noon.
He was chosen thanks to his contribution to the world of acting from his debut film role in Irish classic Into The West to his roles in War Of The Buttons, Falling For A Dancer, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Clash Of The Titans, The Guard and Hunger.
CUNNINGHAM has previously won two Best Supporting Actor IFTAs for his roles in The Wind That Shakes the Barley and Hunger, and shared a BAFTA with Michael Fassbender for their crime-drama short film Pitch Black Heist.
I’m a huge fan of the Dubliner and I think he should be awarded as many honours as possible for his contribution to the Irish acting world. He is a complete gentleman and is one of those celebrities who never fails to impress when you meet him in person. He is without airs or graces and a dedicated campaigner for the rights of migrants in Europe.
So you would imagine that with him at the front of the parade I would be the first one there, queuing up to watch the celebrations. But not a chance. Tomorrow, I will embark on my annual exodus from Dublin as the St Patrick’s Day orgy of excess commences.
Though the festival offers a lot early in the day, it slowly turns into an excuse for publicans to make hay and give people an excuse to prove to the world why we are seen as a nation of drunks. The last time I was in Dublin for the Paddy’s Day celebrations, fights were breaking out on Abbey Street and clearly inebriated gangs of thugs roamed the streets causing trouble. And this was only about 5pm!
There were pools of vomit at the top of Talbot Street which mixed with the dumped Irish flags, cigarette butts and ticker tape left over from the earlier parade. These eventually made their way down the kerbs, forming a noxious soupy river taking our nation’s dignity down the drain.
Camden Street looked like the grounds of Electric Picnic on the Monday after everyone had left. I saw the look of horror on the face of one father as he tried to shield his young daughter from two women in leprechaun hats and miniskirts who were flashing at them from outside a pub.
I can’t think of anything worse than bringing my family to the city centre for the festivities. The thought of them getting caught up in this cultural massacre is enough for us to flee the capital for the weekend.
It has been five years since I braved the madness and you only have to look at the webcams that are placed in Temple Bar to see the cobbled streets uncomfortably thronged with revellers who queue from nine in the morning, desperate to get a good spot to host their all-day binge.
Instead I will bring them back to my hometown where they will get to watch — and take part in — a much smaller parade.
They will get to see local farmers bring their animals and tractors through the streets and see the local sports teams honoured for their commitment.
We won’t have to head for the hills once the last float exits the main street and hundreds of thousands of drunken idiots destroy the streets and our national image.
I would love to be there to watch Liam Cunningham lead the parade but unless St Patrick can come back again in another form and drive the drunken degenerates out of Dublin, it’s an experience I will happily miss out on.
making him go through this and you’re not even sure the little thing in his head is a tumour.” ’
Hoping only for her husband to see reason, she left the family’s home for their apartment in Malaga. ‘I kept believing Brett would see sense and bring all the children out and let Ashya have his test.’ Brett didn’t.
At the beginning of September, Naghmeh consulted lawyers about a divorce. ‘Brett and the children came out to see me over summer but not all together. I went back in September but it was as if Brett was addicted to looking on the internet for things that would fight cancer. He took Ashya off school lunches and was giving him raspberries, olives and dried-up bacon instead.
‘I couldn’t take any more. Ashya looked so skinny and deprived. Every morning I woke up and I’d get upset. In the end I went to see a lawyer to find out about a divorce.’
Thankfully, her actions brought matters to a head. Mr King loves his wife and family dearly. He acknowledges now he was ‘hyper’, ‘sleep-deprived’ and literally shaking with stress and worry for Ashya.
He and his wife agreed to take their son to Malaga for the tests on September 27, which revealed the ‘shadow’ was not a tumour but a cluster of abnormal blood vessels, known as a cavernoma, commonly found following radiotherapy.
‘I was so choked up when the radiologist told me,’ says Mr King. ‘He had to say to me categorically: “There is no tumour.”
‘In the car I started crying. My emotions were so stirred up. It was one of those days when you could run down the street skipping. I was incredibly relieved. But because of the cavernoma, we needed to see a neurologist. ‘We’d been on this emotional ride for three years taking Ashya to Spain for medical care, taking him out of school, leaving the other kids. I knew he was going to need long-term monitoring and felt now was the time to build bridges with the medical team in Southampton.’ Upon his return, Mr King called the oncology department at Southampton General Hospital. This was the hospital that had fought them tooth and nail, whose intervention had led to them being arrested and thrown into jail, which had tried, all the way to the High Court, dictate what was best for their child. ‘I just said: “Can you help me?” There was no nastiness, no unkindness. They said: “Bring the scans this afternoon.” ’ It was the first time the Kings had returned to the hospital since stealing their son away three years before. ‘When we stopped in the carpark I took Naghmeh to the charity house the children and I had stayed in,’ says Mr King. ‘That was strange. I could remember our children playing in the garden, never imagining what was going to happen.’
HE SHAKES his head in wonderment. Southampton confirmed the MRI scans show Ashya is tumour-free. The knowledge is a weight off both their shoulders.
Dr Hernan Cortes Funes, the head of the oncology department at the respected HC Marbella International hospital in Spain, who has treated Ashya since he was discharged from the hospital in Prague, says he is in remission and the chances of the tumour returning are now ‘very low’.
He says, ‘This isn’t an exact science but three-and-a-half years is a good time to presume he won’t relapse. He is in remission and there is no sign the tumour will return, although he will need to be monitored with yearly MRIs.
‘In the time we’ve been treating him, he has learnt how to walk and talk and is doing well at school. It is now widely recognised proton therapy is the best treatment for children with brain cancer.’
‘We can look at Ashya now and think about a future,’ says Mr King. ‘He’s full of questions: “Why is the sky black at night?” “Because the sun’s gone.” “Where has the sun gone?” “It’s behind part of the earth.” “Why has the moon got light then?”’ He laughs. ‘It’s one question after the next.’
‘He’s getting stronger. We go walking every day. His right side needs to recuperate more. When he runs, he leads with his left leg, but it’ll come. He’s able to go up and down stairs on his own. He’s riding a bike. When he began to ride it I’d hold on to him. Eventually he asked me to let him do it on his own.
‘It was beautiful to be able to give him the freedom and see he was able to handle it. It will be beautiful to watch him grow into a young man who, yes, will always be affected to some degree by the last three years, but not as badly as he would have been if we hadn’t done what we as parents felt was right.’
Indeed, a study published in The Lancet Oncology journal nearly 18 months after the Kings fled confirmed proton beam therapy causes fewer side-effects in child cancer patients than conventional radiotherapy.
‘Just because your child goes into hospital it doesn’t mean you should leave your parental rights at the door,’ says Mr King. ‘Ashya is testament to that.’