Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
Will Sophie’s loved ones get answers at long last?
IT WAS only last September when I broke the story that Ian Bailey was suffering from heart problems.
After getting a tip from a source, I called Bailey to enquire as to his condition. When the phone was answered, the voice that had become so familiar through news reports and documentaries spoke.
I am accustomed to unsettling conversations, but even so, I vividly recall that there was something in his speech that sent a shiver down my spine.
It was true, he told me from his hospital bed, that he was having health issues. But they were not as serious as I had been reliably informed. He had ‘minor heart’ problems. So after a brief and eerie conversation I ended the call.
Then about 30 minutes later my phone rang again. Looking at the number, I answered and heard once more ‘that’ voice.
Despite minutes earlier telling me he was determined to put the past behind him and ‘get on with his life’ he had something to tell me.
‘They used to call me “The Scoop” when I was a journalist,’ he said in a drawl. ‘And from chatting with you I think that you’re a lovely young journalist so I have a scoop for you’. Thinking he was about to confess I felt that shiver again.
But no. He was, he informed me, doing a podcast that would ‘tell his truth’. In essence, he was embarking on another project where he would once again protest his innocence. ‘So, now, there’s a little scoop from me to you.’
I muttered a half-hearted ‘thanks’ and terminated the call.
I filed my story and reported that Bailey was admitted to hospital, including his comments that his health matters were trifling. So I was astonished – but not entirely surprised – that the day after my story was published, Bailey had changed his tune.
On Monday morning every paper carried the story; except in the intervening hours Bailey’s heart issues had gone from minor to major. He was in fact near death’s door, he told other outlets.
He had, to my mind, come to believe that his heart attacks could elicit the public sympathy he so desperately sought.
I have no doubt who killed Sophie Toscan du Plantier on that night in Cork. And while it’s said that dead men can’t talk, I fervently hope anyone still among the living with relevant information will finally come forward and give Sophie’s loved ones some semblance of peace and solace. They can never get their daughter and mother back, but they deserve the truth.
He’s in a premier league of his own
REGULAR readers will know, I have zero interest in football. Zilch. Nada. Particularly regarding the preening lot who kick the ball around the pitch.
But Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp makes my heart skip a little beat.
For he has it all effortlessly: his Germanic gravitas; that cheeky smile as he tugs on his precisely curated beard (his facial hair being so gorgeously German); his sardonic sense of humour; his dishevelled dress.
But mostly he never fails to show how much he cares. And not just about scoring goals or winning a match. He cares for the fans, for the players and he actually gives more than a damn about humanity; Jürgen Klopp is one gorgeous caring person.
This week Klopp said he’s leaving Liverpool. He has, he said, simply ‘run out of steam’. So as he heads off, the game of football has for me bid adieu to the one thing of beauty it had going for it. But he’ll always have a place in my heart.
A drive for us to all be that bit kinder
I HAVE, this week, finally admitted defeat. After many, many, many years of browbeating by the caterwauling BE KIND mob, I’ve been worn down and worn out.
With the mantra ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’, I decided to be BE KIND... to myself. I kindly bought a nifty little racy-red sports car. And while my new run-around may err on the flashy side, it was not overly exorbitant, costing more or less the same as a modest mid-range motor. But to my utter shock, my gesture of self-goodwill has enlightened me to what the deplorable do-gooders have been banging on about; people are just not nice. Through my act of nice-ness-to-Niamhie, I have inadvertently incurred the wrath of fellow travellers – mainly other women and Amazon delivery drivers.
Trying to manoeuvre into a different lane is akin to breaching the Berlin Wall. Not only will some other drivers not let me nudge in, many purposely position themselves to ensure I am wedged between two lanes in a driving No Man’s Land, which upsets those in the lane from which I am diligently attempting to extricate myself.
Even when I am simply tootling along minding my own business, I have received glares of acrimony that silently say, ‘rich b **** ’.
I am neither (honestly). Is it really too much to ask for a little decency among drivers? I guess what I’m saying is, can’t we all – when in our cars – just BE KIND.
Do speak up, unless you don’t agree
THE National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWC) should really at this stage rebrand itself to the National Council for a Very Small Proportion of Women.
The council this week launched its YESYES campaign for the upcoming amendments to the Constitution. And if the issue wasn’t so serious, the guff that is coming from the Not All Women Council would be utterly laughable.
The hypocrisy displayed by the NWC – who, by the way, receive over a million euro in funding from the working women (and men) of Ireland – is simply staggering. Their utterances about how Articles 4.1 and 4.2 are harmful to women are just untruths.
The YESYES campaign has in essence said that the articles have basically statute-barred the women of Ireland from scaling the ladder of life; that we have been subjugated by men and held hostage by the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the X (Twitter) account for the taxpayer-funded NWC has silenced any others who may disagree. Their posts on the referendum allow only comments from accounts the NWC follows.
This comes from the very same quango who run The Speak Up Club which, they say, encourages women to speak up and emboldens us to be heard... unless, of course, you want to say something that they don’t want to hear.