Think Ahead is the easy and convenient way to plan for future needs

Irish Hospice Foundation simplifies Advance Care Planning with Think Ahead

Think Ahead - What is it?

Think Ahead Planning Packs, developed by Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF), are easy to read guides for patients, their families, and caregivers to start putting their affairs in order for their end of life.

With Think Ahead, people can make their care wishes known, appoint somebody to act as their healthcare advocate, keep track of important documents, and more. In the 10 years since Think Ahead was initially launched, it has become a key advance care planning resource for people in Ireland.

Planning ahead can reduce stress or anxiety people may feel when facing dying. Using Think Ahead can also reduce conflict between family members. Over 100,000 people have already received a version of Think Ahead through their GP, at events, or by ordering from IHF.

What’s in the Revised Think Ahead Pack?

My Personal Wishes and Care Plan booklet asks people completing the forms how they would like to be cared for, in the face of illness or injury. They can record where they would prefer to be - at home, in hospital, or hospice; what is important to them - such as having visitors, spiritual or religious beliefs, favourite music; as well as how to care for them. This document also allows patients to keep track of legal and financial information, and for the courageous - what type of funeral and after- death care they would prefer. My Advance Healthcare Directive booklet guides patients in how to refuse or request treatment for a later date, if some illness or injury means they cannot express their choices and they can appoint a trusted person to make healthcare decisions on their behalf. In the Medical Summary Form/leaflet, patients can summarise what has been detailed in their Think Ahead documents once completed and ask their healthcare team to make a copy for their medical file. This ensures that if the time comes, everybody who needs to know is already aware of a patient’s recorded choices. All are enclosed in a handy folder for safekeeping.

To Learn More

IHF are running events on Think Ahead over the next few months where people can learn how to use Think Ahead packs and start conversations with their loved ones. Valerie Smith, IHF’s Public Engagement Lead knows talking about dying can be hard, “but talking about it can make dying and death less fear-filled, and a better experience for everyone.”

For further information and to order Think Ahead packs: visit www.thinkahead.ie, call IHF on (01) 679 3188 or email thinkahead@hospicefoundation.ie Email valerie.smith@hospicefoundation.ie or call (01) 963 1161 to arrange Think Ahead training for your community.

Querist' written in 1735 he even suggests that slavery in Ireland would be no bad thing.

Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut,USA, has a college residency named for the same George Berkeley and they did their own research on slavery links and turned up some details of Berkeley's American 'missionary project that began when he purchased a plantation in Rhode Island. He named it Whitehall "in loyal remembrance of the palace of the English Kings from Henry VIII to James II." Their report says Berkeley bought “a negro man named Philip aged 14 years or thereabout,” also “a negro man named Edward aged 20 years or thereabouts”. Berkeley justifying slavery on the grounds that it would lead to Christian conversions, announcing he had "baptised three of his negroes" The same Berkeley gives his name to Berkeley University and the city of Berkeley in California.

More recently came the announced rebranding of The Westin Hotel as The Westmoreland was scrapped because John Fane, the 10th Earl of Westmorland was a zealous defender of slavery in London's House of Lords, denouncing all attempts to end the slave trade. So now it will be The College Green Hotel.

Unfortunately College Green itself has several associations with slavery. The front gates of Trinity and very frontage and entry into the college facing College Green was built funded by duty from tobacco, a slave crop. Across the road, the magnificent columned facade of the Bank of Ireland, originally designed as Ireland’s Parliament Building, was built with money from sugar duty - another crop raised by slaves in a West Indies plantations. Now it is a Bank of Ireland branch with a lineage reaching back to the La Touche family. After making a fortune in the clothing industry they established one of the earliest banks in Ireland - the House of La Touche. That merged into several other banks along the way and finally became the Bank of Ireland. The La Touche family came to Ireland as Huguenot refugees. They were involved on the Williamite side in the Battle of the Boyne. Three of the family, William Digges La Touche; Peter Digges La Touche with an address in Dublin at 2 St Stephen's Green and Mary Digges La Touche received over £7,000 (over €1 million today) in compensation for loss of their 404 slaves on three Jamaican plantations. David La Touche was the first Governor of the Bank of Ireland. In 1764 he had enough cash to acquire what is now known as Marlay House and Park in Rathfarnham - named for his wife Elizabeth Marlay, the daughter of Bishop George Marlay. And right up to date - one of Dublin's newest glass walled buildings - La Touche House on Custom House Dock in the IFSC was named after David La Touche by Bank of Ireland.

More recently came the announced rebranding of The Westin Hotel as The Westmoreland because John Fane, the 10th Earl of Westmorland was a zealous defender of slavery in London's House of Lords, denouncing all attempts to end the slave trade. So now it will be The College Green Hotel.

Other Dublin slave owners

When Britain ended slavery in their colonies with the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, slave-owners in Dublin were deemed eligible for compensation for the loss about four thousand slaves. This estimate is based on the University College London ‘Legacies of British slaveownership’ database. The total of slaves owned may have been higher.

Many applications were rejected, others may have owned slaves in other European owned colonies. Most Dublin slave owners would be Anglo-Irish, aristocrats, certainly well heeled and also factor in that Dublin slave owners included those born-in Ireland or those simply resident in the country at the time.

The Shelbourne Hotel took the precautionary measure of removing four neoclassical decorative statues from railings outside the hotel - the possibility they might conceivably be Nubian slaves in manacles. Reinstated when art historians agreed that far from being slaves, these 'manacles' were ornate anklets on four aristocratic young ladies.

Much of this was obtained from the website; mylesdungan.com/2020/06/12/ ireland-and-slavery/ - it lists all of recognised slave owners in Ireland.

The legacy and dealing with it

My instincts say let it be history. Trinity also have a stained-glass window commemorating George Berkeley and for that they decided to adopt a retain-and-explain approach which might have been better than denaming. After all when Trinity opened this part of the Library in 1967 they certainly didn't name it because of his status as a slave owner. University's Board and the Trinity Legacies Review Working Group summed up their denaming decision saying 'The denaming does not deny Berkeley’s importance as a writer, philosopher, and towering intellectual figure. His philosophical work will still be taught at Trinity and remains of significant contemporary relevance.'