NEW YEAR:Now is the time for setting goals for the year ahead. A selection of people tell BRIAN O'CONNELLwhat they hope to achieve in 2012
MAUREEN FORREST
Hope Foundation founder and director
I will try and do as much as I can to ensure the safety and protection of the street children we have taken on board in Kolkata. The fundraising will be very difficult this year. When Irish people had it they gave generously. We need to spread our wings into the UK and Germany and appeal to those here who still have to give.
JOHN KELLY
Artist
I would like to ask could somebody fill the pot-holes on the road from Reen Pier to Union Hall in west Cork? There is a really big one just outside James Deasy’s house. If this is not possible, I would like physicists to finally reveal the true laws and nature of dark matter in our universe, so I might better understand why pot-holes exist at all.
GREG CANTY
Business owner
At the early stages of the recession I heard Louis Copeland offering the advice to anyone in business to get up earlier, roll up your sleeves and work harder. That advice, along with a determination to stay positive within ourselves and for our clients, has served our business well.
Fr HARRY BOHAN
Chairman of The Céifin Centre
My hope is that we as a nation will begin to restore the balance by returning to the local of family and community – the two systems which held generations of Irish people together. Having become part of the global economic system, shaped by market values of competitiveness and greed, we might now return to values such as truth and trust, values required by honour to hold a society together. In practise, there is a major challenge in this for institutions such as churches to readjust and focus on the people they serve.
ALAN QUINLAN
Former rugby player, author of Red Blooded
My New Year resolution is to find a career – whether it is coaching or work in the media. I need to find a bit of structure and adapt to a new phase. When I look back at the end of the year I’d like to be able to say I put some shape on the next chapter of my life. I need to give a bit more of my time to my family and take time out for myself and spend more time with friends. I want also to try and continue with my work raising awareness of depression and mental health.
MIRIAM O’CALLAGHAN
Prime Timepresenter
My wish for this year has been the same wish for about 16 years now. That was when my view of my world changed forever. I wish with all my heart that my children, my husband Steve, my mother and all my immediate family stay healthy and well. When I was younger I never quite understood my wise Kerry father’s mantra that “your health is your wealth”. The still inexplicable cruelty of my precious sister Anne’s death from cancer aged 33 in 1995 made it my mantra then and it remains so today. It is all that matters. My new year’s resolution is never to forget that what matters – and to keep on telling all those I love in my life that I love them every day.
EMMA QUINLAN
Model and performer
I would like to stop hearing everyone being so negative. One of the things I’ll continue this year is not waking up to the news on the radio alarm clock. I prefer to wake up with music. If you start out negativity, chances are you’ll remain that way yourself.
JACK L SINGER
I’d like to see a new idea of community emerge this year. We also need to look at the positive and concentrate on them as much as the negatives. We need new Einsteins and new Ghandis.
GERRY COLLISON
Media student
My wishes for 2012 are that the vision of Michael D Higgins will supercede that of Michael O’Leary and that Cadburys realises that nobody really likes coffee-flavoured chocolates. I would also like for it to be acknowledged that the world’s dependence on fossil fuels is a greater environmental hazard than allowing small farmers cut their own turf.
I’d like for Ireland to become an international distribution hub for east/west trade and for RTÉ’s Paschal Sheehy to develop a Donegal accent and that Daniel O’Donnell would develop a Cork one.
KAREN HENNESSY
Chief executive of the Crafts Council of Ireland
Every year I would write down a few resolutions. The more important ones are to do with the fact I have three kids and I set out what I want to see happen to each of them during the year. So this year, I want to teach my two oldest piano. I’ll teach them myself and see how it goes. I also want to try and visit more museums, and get to Belfast and London during the year as a family.
SHANE MALONE
Professional
Personally, I am resolved to watch less television this year. I sometimes find whole evenings disappear in front of the box. At best I might have gained a new and largely useless knowledge about how cyclones form or the lifecycle of a seahorse. At worst I’ll have discovered something new about Peter Andre.
DERMOT BOLGER
Writer
My family circumstances have been such that for the last two years, I have just been getting by with my life. This year I intend to get back to writing which I haven’t been doing for the last 18 months. Personally, I would expire happily this year while watching Robbie Keane scoring the winning penalty at Euro 2012.
Last year, I did an interview about my wife’s death and it affected a lot of people. I wrote to everyone who wrote to me. A lot of the year was spent replying to people. I felt everything I had to say about that was said.
I wrote poems about it and they will be published in the Autumn called The Venice Suite, and that is really all publicly that I will be saying about that business.
