What were the best stories by The Pat Kenny Show team in 2024?
We picked out a few that got people talking.
'It's very difficult to protect' - Harris told to move out of Wicklow home
In July, Taoiseach Simon Harris was advised to move out of his family home for security reasons to Farmleigh House in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.
Simon Harris with President Michael D Higgins. Image: PA Images / Alamy. 9 April 2024The property in Greystones, County Wicklow was considered to be quite exposed.
“It was felt that the house in Greystones, a newly built house in an estate, surrounded by other houses and gardens was just extremely difficult for the Gardaí to protect properly,” Irish Daily Mail Political Editor John Lee told The Pat Kenny Show.
“Just in comparison to previous Taoisigh and Ministers for Justice, they just found it very difficult and we then had something that was a watershed for Mr Harris and his family - there was a bomb threat to his house.”
Luke O’Neill: ‘Two or three showers a week is enough’
No doubt about it, this was one hot take that horrified some people.
Trinity Professor and Pat Kenny Show regular Professor Luke O’Neill said he believes people need only shower two or three times a week.
“It’s a bit controversial because some occupations have to have more regular showers,” he said.
“Some people of course will have different standards - but every morning when I wake up, I do jump in.
“The overall advice would be two or three times a week is fine.
“In fact, if you shower too much, they can cause your skin to dry, and crack can increase the risk of a bit of injury.
“Of course, if you don’t shower enough, that may make you offensive to the people you live with.”
A woman in the shower. Photo by Karolina Grabowska.Woman gives up cycling after council threatens her with €12m fine
What would it take you to give up something you love?
It turns out a €12 million fine will do it.
Siobhán Kelly put up the shed in her front garden to store her mother’s wheelchair and two bikes belonging to herself and her son.
Not long later, she got a letter from Dublin City Council warning her to take it down – or face a €12m fine or two-years in prison.
Siobhán Kelly. 13/02/2024. Image: Siobhán Kelly.“I guess somebody complained about me,” Ms Kelly said.
The letter was all the more surprising because the family had asked Dublin City Council for advice prior to installing the bunker in her front garden.
“The guidelines, in hindsight, are pretty unclear and misleading,” she said.
“The guidelines suggested to me that you cannot have anything forward of the front wall of your house.
“So, to my mind, that meant my front garden wall - you’re not going to put anything within the confines of the path.
“But within the confines of your own boundary, your own property, to me it made sense.”
Ms Kelly decided to comply but also that she would get rid of her bikes as well.
'Why didn't I act sooner?' - Kathryn Thomas on her baby's 'terrifying' RSV diagnosis
Broadcaster Kathryn Thomas has spoken out about her 'terrifying' ordeal with her young child who contracted RSV.
Kathryn told The Pat Kenny Show she began to notice something was off with her daughter Grace when she was three-weeks-old.
“I noticed that she was quite congested [with a] big blocked nose,” she said.
"I knew because when I tried to feed her she was pulling herself away from the breast.
"I didn't think anything about it; I thought [it was] a little cold - and because Ellie my eldest wasn't sick, I wasn't too concerned.
"The only thing I knew at that stage as a mother to be panicking about was if the child had a temperature."
Kathryn Thomas talks to Pat Kenny about her child's RSV diagnosis, 8-10-24. Image: NewstalkAbout four days later Grace's condition deteriorated.
"The cough started getting worse - very congested, green mucus - she was again not feeding very well," she said.
"I was at the school gate and one of the mothers looked into the buggy and I said, 'I don't want to be clogging up the waiting rooms, it's just a head cold.
"She said, 'If I were you don't be worried about that and off you go.'"
Kathryn took Grace to the Emergency Department at Crumlin Children's Hospital and she was successfully treated for RSV.
'It was Hell on earth' - Irish Holocaust survivors reflect on Auschwitz anniversary
Every year, the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles ever further.
In Ireland, only a handful are still alive to bear witness to this most terrible moment in Europe’s history.
Slovakian-born Dubliner Tomi Reichental lost 35 members of his family in the Shoah and still vividly remembers the day his beloved grandparents were arrested.
In the summer of 1942, an old family friend knocked on the door of the Reichentals’ family home.
Tomi Reichental in Bergen Belsen. Picture by: Holocaust Education Ireland.Dressed head to toe in the black uniform of Slovakia’s Hlinka Guard, Lodovit Nedleka pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and calmly told his devastated neighbours, “By order of the Interior Ministry, Jew Jecheskel Reichental and his wife Katarina, are to go with this defence officer. You are permitted to bring only what is absolutely essential.”
The family tears and pleas fell on deaf, uncaring ears. For months, Tomi’s father had been paying the authorities huge bribes to secure permits exempting them from deportation.
Further exemption papers were in the post but this was a detail of no importance to Nedleka.
The Germans and their enthusiastic Slovakian collaborators cared little for paperwork or the feelings of Jews. Since 1942, the Nazis had committed themselves to a ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ and that meant the annihilation of European Jewry.
Tomi’s Granny Katarina hung up her apron, packed a bag for herself and her husband, and the couple left their village of Merašice for the last time.
After the war, the Reichentals learnt they had been murdered in Auschwitz. Most likely, they were gassed upon arrival.
You can listen to other highlights of The Pat Kenny Show here.
Main image: Pat Kenny on Newstalk. Picture by: Newstalk
