Medical Matters: I have not placed my sanity at risk over the past few weeks by meditating on the vagaries of the health service. Instead, I have opted for a sojourn in the real world.
I am writing this on a windless day with a flat calm sea, and the smoke from the houses opposite on the lower slopes of Seefin rising vertically in the still air. This, I believe, ranks as zero on the Beaufort scale of wind velocity.
The weather mattered little in my full-time working days. Now, however, it assumes much greater significance. This is because so much time is spent outdoors, and wind, tides, rainfall and temperature become very important. The mysteries of weather forecasting remain obscure to an amateur like myself but in this little haven of Dooks, Co Kerry, thankfully the more dire predictions often prove unfounded. This has been a summer for the active type, rather than the beach potato, and that suits me fine.
I have frequently been asked if I miss surgery and the everyday activity, bustle and undoubted challenge of hospital life.
I must answer truthfully, I do not.
As I continue to chronicle my passage through a medical lifetime, I shall endeavour to explain this. Over-administration, pointless time- consuming paperwork, diversion of resources into the shadow rather than the substance of healthcare, and lack of sensible and coherent policy are a few of the reasons I and many of my colleagues feel relief at the end of active participation in an endless struggle.
That being said, most remain deeply committed to change, although now working from without.
I note that we are to have an aptitude test for entry to medical school and, possibly, also for nursing school. In the latter instance, it might be asked why 70 per cent of our graduating nurses have left the profession within 18 months of graduation.
It is very important that we examine such proposals very carefully indeed, lest we open a Pandora's box containing the seeds of destruction for what is left of the caring professions.
These latter proposals come through the Department of Education. There is no point in lining up the usual parrots to regurgitate the current theory, which is usually a mixture of political correctness and arrant nonsense. Without listening to the voices of working - and I stress the word working - doctors and nurses, no worthwhile progress will be made.
Back to the real world. Where I am now is seven miles from Killorglin and we are in the post-Puck period. I suppose everybody knows about Puck Fair, and certainly I am not competent to write its history. Simply, it is a three-day celebration, homecoming, cattle and horse fair and exuberant festival.
Held on the 10th, 11th, 12th of August and of uncertain origins lost in antiquity, it is an epochal event here and one by which time is measured. It is, together with the Old Lammas fair in Ballycastle, and the horse fair in Ballinasloe, one of Ireland's great fairs.
We do know that James the first gave a patent to Jenkin Conway "to hold a a faire Killorgan on Lammas Day and the day after". This was given in 1641 and the fair existed long before that date.
There is a tradition that at the hiring fairs in Killorglin in February a stipulation of those hired was that they had three days holiday for Puck. More cynically, it was suggested that the servant girls hired were promised three days for Puck and a child for Christmas.
In Rambles in Ireland (1912), Robert Lynd describes a banner, with "Eire gan Meisce, Eire gan Spleadachas" (Ireland sober, Ireland free) on it, strung across the square in Killorglin.
A more inappropriate placement cannot be imagined. If you have not been to Puck, come and see for yourselves what a wonderful occasion it is, "where the goat acts the king and the people act the goat".
Enter into the spirit of the event and enjoy yourselves. The pubs are no longer open 24 hours. They close now at 4 a.m. and re-open at 8 a.m., so thirst could be a problem.
The only serious crime this year was that apparently somebody smoked a cigarette in a pub. An intensive manhunt (personhunt?) is still underway but the culprit is rumoured to have fled to the mountains with the dethroned goat. Come and enjoy a wonderful event amongst lovely people. See you all at the next Puck.
Dr Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon.