Match for Michaela - do we need yet another charity?

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Protocol said:
Note - if this person lives in Ireland, healthcare is provided free by the State, except for GP fees, A&E fees, drugs up to 132 pm.
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It is, but Id imagine the public system wouldnt have nearly the same level of accessible specialised physios/equipment etc that private rehab centres would. A lack of continuity is also a big issue, you never see the consultant himself but one of his underlings so you have to re-explain the same things each time etc...

I had a big knee surgery in my teens and everything went through the public system, a number of years later I still had problems and saw a physio privately and they couldnt believe the limitations under which I had been rehabbed, I was discharged entirely from the system while still unable to weight bear on the operated limb, and lots of issues were totally ignored. Now thats just one experience, but Id rather not be depending on the public system if I was trying to rehab from anything that required specialisation.
 
T McGibney said:
Really? Charities, by and large, get saturation coverage in the Irish media.It sounds to me that you begrudge poor John McAreavey the interviews he got last week.
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That response is part of the problem for me, 'poor John McAreavey' needs to grieve like any other person, but tugging on peoples heartstrings just to hand over more money for another charity is wrong imo. If her father wasn't well known then we wouldn't even be talking about this.
 
MrMan said:
That response is part of the problem for me, 'poor John McAreavey' needs to grieve like any other person, but tugging on peoples heartstrings just to hand over more money for another charity is wrong imo. If her father wasn't well known then we wouldn't even be talking about this.
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But why begrudge him airtime as the other poster did? If, like Melanie Verwoerd, he had written a book about his tragic experience, the media would be over him like a rash and nobody would be complaining.

For what its worth, I haven't heard John McAreavey ask anybody for money. An attractive fundraising match was organised and played in Casement Park, with 18,000+ people attending. This would have raised a decent sum, but nobody was forced to go and nobody had collection buckets or chugger debit mandates waved in their faces.
 
T McGibney said:
But why begrudge him airtime as the other poster did? If, like Melanie Verwoerd, he had written a book about his tragic experience, the media would be over him like a rash and nobody would be complaining.

For what its worth, I haven't heard John McAreavey ask anybody for money. An attractive fundraising match was organised and played in Casement Park, with 18,000+ people attending. This would have raised a decent sum, but nobody was forced to go and nobody had collection buckets or chugger debit mandates waved in their faces.
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I "begrudge" him the airtime because it's not available to other small or new charities. Some is available to the larger charities but rarely the small ones. Have a look at this list [broken link removed] - when was the last time you heard Wells for Zoe getting widespread media coverage, or The Leprosy Mission Ireland, or Health Care on the Margins?

The sole purpose of the John McAreavey interviews last week was to promote the match and therefore the foundation. Maybe it was packaged a little more tactfully than a hard sell but the foundation and the match were widely referenced.
 
shesells said:
I "begrudge" him the airtime because it's not available to other small or new charities. Some is available to the larger charities but rarely the small ones. Have a look at this list [broken link removed] - when was the last time you heard Wells for Zoe getting widespread media coverage, or The Leprosy Mission Ireland, or Health Care on the Margins?
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So you do begrudge him the airtime? Thanks for confirming that.

What makes you so sure that this airtime would have gone instead to [broken link removed] or [broken link removed], neither of whom appear to have had any problems in the past, getting on Pat Kenny's show?
 
T McGibney said:
So you do begrudge him the airtime? Thanks for confirming that.

What makes you so sure that this airtime would have gone instead to [broken link removed] or [broken link removed], neither of whom appear to have had any problems in the past, getting on Pat Kenny's show?
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I do when it's not a nationally registered charity AND the media coverage is disproportionate. An insert on one radio show was everything, extended and repeat coverage is what this match & foundation got.
 
shesells said:
I do when it's not a nationally registered charity AND the media coverage is disproportionate. An insert on one radio show was everything, extended and repeat coverage is what this match & foundation got.
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The media would'nt be giving airtime to something they did'nt feel there was no demand for.
It's not as though this fundraiser stole the thunder from another...the media would have had some other story on which most likely would'nt have been charity related
 
There are people who get hot-and-bothered over anything. That's OK, but there are others who look on Michaela's foundation like a welcoming light. Somebody earlier mooted the need for a "Central" Charity Distribution Centre. We can already have that, it's called the Lotto. Do we need another government agency? We can argue, but the Lotto is a Charity Central.

Let's get back to Michaela's football match. Nobody was pressganged into attending or contributing. It was an injection of cash into a charity. Let's forget about whether the charity was registered or not; I bet that is being looked after while we speak. Nobody will rip off a cent. There are some registered charities which have been ripped off (don't mention the war!). But, that is another matter.
 
I'm not hot and bothered about it though, I actually feel uneasy about making someone a celebrity post mortem.
 
It was meant to be offensive, but as you said yourself, some people can get hot and bothered over anything.
 
MrMan said:
It was meant to be offensive, but as you said yourself, some people can get hot and bothered over anything.
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I presume you meant:- It was not meant to be offensive . .

Yes, I did get hot and bothered.
 
MrMan said:
I'm not hot and bothered about it though, I actually feel uneasy about making someone a celebrity post mortem.
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Michaela Harte was a celebrity for years before her death. That's why she was mentioned by name on the news reports the day she died.
 
T McGibney said:
Michaela Harte was a celebrity for years before her death. That's why she was mentioned by name on the news reports the day she died.
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Really? I can only remember the news reports reporting it as the daughter of Mickey Harte (didnt know who he was either btw). Even now, in recent reports, she is always mentioned as his daughter.

She may have been known locally but its a bit of a stretch to suggest she was a celebrity.
 
Defining celebrity is a subjective business but a fortnight before she died, photos of her wedding had appeared in the Irish national newspapers and on UTV and BBC NI. Draw your own conclusions.
 
I don't really want to get into why she wasn't a celebrity, as it also feels a little strange to be arguing this point, but I would have to agree with Truthseeker on this. I knew of Mickey Harte through watching and reading about GAA, but she was just his daughter to me and anyone I know. I found out more about her from the extensive coverage of her trial.
 
Of course when someone well-known or reasonably well-known dies, we learn more about them, as we did for example with Bill Tarmey this week. And if someone dies violently we hear even more again from coverage of any subsequent inquest or trial. This is hardly rocket science.
 
I didn't know of her at all though, and an analogy that includes a former rose of tralee, with a popular soap character that was watched by millions for the guts of 30 years, hardly makes sense now does it?
 
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