Meeja WAtch

BY LLOYD GORMAN

THE VARIOUS AND UNIQUE EXPERIENCES OF IRISH PEOPLE IN PERTH CAME ACROSS QUITE A BIT IN THE IRISH MEDIA RECENTLY.

>Waterford woman Kate Doyle, who works in Perth as a veterinary nurse, was interviewed on Morning Ireland in early February about her experience with the recent bushfires that destroyed 86 homes and damaged large swathes of area on the outskirts of the city. The Irish Sun also picked up the story. “On Monday I was driving home from work and saw a big area of smoke. I got back to the house and realised that it was really close to us,” she told the tabloid. “We just kind of kept an eye on it, we didn’t think it was anything serious at that stage, we thought it’s just a fire and it will be put out. All of a sudden it got crazy very quickly. The smoke was getting bigger and bigger. The warnings were going up on the emergency page for our area, so as you can imagine we didn’t get much sleep on Monday.” She and her husband Ian Hayes, who she came to Australia with in 2011, packed all their pets and animals into the car and drove them to safety and luckily enough the 130km long fire front stopped about 7km from their house. “Because I’m a veterinary nurse, we are volunteering to go into the bush fire zone to help with the injured wildlife and animals that have been affected,” she added. As well as the bushfire, Morning Ireland also asked her about being on the other side of the world unable to get home.

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>A native of Cahir, Co. Tipperary Aisling McCarthy spoke to Dermot and Dave on TodayFM on Australia Day about her experience – and that of the other 18 Irish female players drafted to play in the Women’s Australian Football League – and making the move from the Western Bulldogs to the West Coast Eagles. The hosts first question was “How is Perth?”, to which she responded “Yeah, its brilliant, the sunshine makes everything a bit better and then having a bit of freedom as well, I don’t want to talk about it to much, I know its hard at home with the lockdown and all that. I do be a bit conscious when I’m talking to my parents and my friends, its just a totally different world over here. We’re not taking it for granted and just enjoying what we have because we don’t know what’s around the corner. I think that’s what we’ve learned from the last year.” Aisling revealed she shares a house with sisters Niamh and Grace Kelly from Mayo, who also play for the Eagles.

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>The RTE website appears to be the first Irish news outlet to report the story that most of Perth was going into a five day lockdown (Single virus case sends Perth into snap lockdown). "We are trying to crush the virus as quickly as we possibly can" Premier Mark McGowan was quote in the story on January 31.

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>Cork Ladies Football legend Bríd Stack had a similar story to tell the Irish Examiner. She signed a deal with the GWS Giants before Christmas. “Stack, an 11-time All Ireland winner, her husband Carthach and 14-month-old son Carthach Óg, began their journey on December 9,” the newspaper reported on January 11. “They were due to fly from Dublin to Adelaide and then quarantine there. However flight diversions meant that the trio ended up with a lengthy London layover, an overnight in Singapore before touching down in Perth. The Novotel Hotel in the city was their home for their next two weeks, emerging from their quarantine on Christmas Day. The family were set to fly to Sydney on St Stephen's Day but that plan was scrapped as government and state officials ordered that borders be closed to New South Wales amid Sydney’s worsening COVID-19 cluster outbreaks”. True to her character, Stack said it was a stressful experience but she looked for the good in the situation. “We’re getting to see a bit of Australia, which is lovely,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll get to Sydney in a couple more weeks and we look forward to that too. It’s a fantastic experience, an opportunity for my family and I suppose I am so, so grateful and delighted that the boys could travel with me.”

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>On January 27 Dublin based radio station Newstalk ran an item under the heading: The Irish abroad – ‘Amazing’ mandatory quarantine has seen the good times return in Perth’. “It has been pretty good,” said Perth based Cork native Nicola Healy. “We are out, we are able to socialise, meet our friends, go out to shops and have people over to the house and stuff, so yeah, it is a lot different to home at the moment.” Nicola works as a nurse and is also the PRO for St. Garbriel’s GAA club. “What has really been shown to work here, and the reason we are living such a normal life, is that hotel quarantine,” she added. “I just find that amazing. Anyone that comes in internationally right now is escorted to a hotel – there are different hotels in the city, all the big-name hotels – and they are quarantined for 14 days without leaving the hotel. That is why we have no community transmission as of this evening.”

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>The Irish Times carried the first hand account of Sonya Redmond, originally from Wexford, in a story headed: ‘We put to the back of our minds the fact that we can’t leave Australia’ on February 8. The piece revealed the internal struggle felt by many Irish people here. “I’ve lived abroad in Australia for just under nine years. Perth has been home for the past seven of those. A home bird at heart, the thought of moving back to to family in Ireland is always on my mind, but I rationalise it away thinking of the lifestyle and job prospects I have here in Australia. At the end of this repetitive inner debate I usually decide that, just for now, I am better off over here, but it is always a very dissatisfying conclusion.” Phone calls are the only way she can stay in touch with ‘the ma’ back in Ireland. “My mam and I would always comfort ourselves with the fact that we are only 24 hours away from each other and can see each other the next day if we need to. Well, 2020 put a stop to that sort of thinking for us both.” Sonya, who is married to Kenneth McCarthy, works as chief of staff on the Crawley Campus of the University of Western Australia. “I am fortunate to work in a beautiful university in Perth with lush green grounds, although that usually prompts the reaction from people in Ireland of, “Well, look where you are, sitting out in the sun, while we are freezing over here.” I typically play it down. “Ah, yeah, but it’s too hot, to be honest: it’s uncomfortable.” Sonya also wrote about Perth’s recent bushfires. “Being from Ireland, the reality of the damage that can be caused by such fires is truly shocking, and the fire warnings on the radio really jolt me,” she added.

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<Not many of us will be getting back to Ireland anytime soon but on January 20 CNN carried a story on their website about one of the greatest escapes ever executed. ‘The Catalpa Rescue: The story behind one of Australia's most incredible prison escapes’ was published as a travel piece by the American outlet. “Perth, Australia (CNN) — It all began with a letter sent from inside an Australian "tomb," a document so convincing that it prompted a US gang to sail some 20,000 kilometers (12,427 miles) to execute what could arguably be considered one of the most outrageous prison escapes in Australian history,” wrote CNN correspondent Ronan O’Connell. “The year was 1876. Using a series of codes and disguises, the bold group snuck into Western Australia to free six Irish political prisoners. Now, 145 years later, a new generation of Australians is learning about this prison break thanks to WA Museum Boola Bardip.”

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>During more normal times, most of the traffic between Ireland and Australia seems be skewed towards those emigrating, but there are those whose lives went the other way. On January 16 the Irish Times carried an obituary for Dr Michael Mulcahy, a Dublin psychiatrist who transformed care for people with intellectual disabilities. “Inspirational to colleagues and personable to residents, he was appreciated for his kind and progressive approach at a time when stigma and lack of ambition for people with an intellectual disability was the dominant culture,” the article stated. As far back as the 1970’s Dr Mulcahy spearheaded the revolutionary project to build more than 20 bungalows in the grounds of Stewarts Hospital in Palmerstown, Dublin for patients to live independently and with dignity. Almost single handedly Dr Mulcahy transformed the sector and brought great improvements to their lives. The tribute piece also explained a bit about his own personal life and his origins. “The third of four children of Dr Daniel Mulcahy and his wife, Josephine (nee Delaney), Michael Mulcahy was born in Perth, Australia. His parents had Irish roots and when his father died at the age of 33, his mother returned to Ireland, remarried and settled in Ballinakill, Co Laois where she had a third daughter, Judy.”

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>In a well written and insightful piece published by the Irish Independent on February 20, Ronan O’Connell shared with readers his family’s recent experience of hotel quarantine in the Westin Hotel, Perth. On day six he was able to tell his mother back in Ireland that “it’s easy and actually quite fun”, but admits then that he spoke too soon. “By Day 10, all three of us were struggling. I was feeling claustrophobic, my wife was anxious and our 10-month-old son Aidan had lost his spark,” writes Ronan. “He’s not the same,” my wife said with a worried expression, as she stroked his hair in one of our adjoining rooms at the Westin Hotel Perth. He counts himself lucky at least that they had each other throughout the ordeal, his 72 year old mum had already gone through the process but did it alone. The end couldn’t come soon enough for them and they had to wait for the exact minute to be able to leave the room that had been like a prison for the last two weeks. “At 7:06pm I poked my head out the door. Down the hall, I saw another quarantine guest doing the same,” he added. “Then, as if a starter’s pistol had been fired, the stampede began. After being locked up for two weeks, suddenly there was a hall full of us jostling for a spot in the elevator. Quarantine was over. Never again, please.”

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