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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is James Gearing and this week
it is my absolute honour to welcome on the show Irish builder, firefighter and poet Jared
Devine.
Now with this being St. Patrick's Day I felt this was the perfect time to air such a powerful
conversation.
So we discuss a host of topics from his early life, building houses in both Ireland and
the US, his journey into the fire service, paramedicine in Dublin, his pilgrimage in
Spain, volunteering in Africa and to round off this incredible conversation he reads
one of his poems The Firefighter's Call.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and
leave a rating.
Every single 5 star rating truly does elevate this podcast therefore making it easier for
others to find and this is a free library of over 900 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so
I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said I introduce to you Jared Devine.
Enjoy.
Well Jare I want to start by saying two things.
Firstly thank you so much to Peter Conroy who we'll talk about in a minute for connecting
us and secondly to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thanks very much James, delighted to be here.
It all came about through Peter Conroy, one of my colleagues in the Dublin Fire Brigade
so I love your show and I love what you're doing so delighted to be here.
So as an icebreaker I told you this was going to go out on St Patrick's Day, it's funny
how the universe kind of makes these things happen and then we are both holding a pint
of Guinness which is so cliche but this is actually quite a pertinent drink for you and
your personal life and your family so talk to me about the connections with your father
and your wife and the pint of Guinness.
Okay that tastes good.
So yeah well my father would be from the centre of town and when he was 14 years of age he
started working in Guinness and he remained there for almost five decades and he remembers
he was 14 because he got his first pair of long pants and he started in Guinness and
he loved it, he worked hard but even growing up like if we were drinking any beer or anything
like that we'd be kind of persuaded, no listen hang on Guinness pay my wages so you drink
Guinness you know that's it.
So we'd have no options and actually even when it wasn't that long ago with newborn
babies the mother would be given like a glass of Guinness because of the iron in the Guinness
it was considered good for them.
So and then I'm just trying to think well yeah my wife Steph she was working in a bar
in town when I met her and they were just closing the bar and any chance of a Guinness
we were only arriving me and my pal so she let us in and she just poured me the most
perfect pint of Guinness and I was just in love you know I was like man this girl's amazing
you know so that was what qualities do you look for type thing but yeah and I was trying
to chat her up and I was getting nowhere you know I don't think she was interested but
even then you know what do I work as and set the fire brigade still nothing I was like
oh man this is tough.
What is wrong with this woman?
Yeah man come on I've had more than once but then I literally had just got my dog which
is like dog Saoirse she's a rescue dog and once she heard that the tune changed like
because she's an animal lover and she loves dogs and then that was great like you know
so but I was trying everything I told her I had a pickup truck I told her I worked
in the fire brigade you know nothing but once I mentioned the dog that was good it was a
good start you know so yeah ten years later yeah ten years later we're together we're
married now so we still have the dog she's hanging in there.
Beautiful beautiful.
Thank goodness for a lot I guess.
Yeah absolutely it's interesting kind of start to the conversation so obviously by your accent
you're not in South Carolina so tell people where you're sitting right now.
Yeah so at the moment I'm over in Ireland and I know this is going out on Paddy's day
so it's probably a lot of Irish people listening hopefully on a day when everyone's Irish but
I'm in a place called Wicklow I'm from Dublin and I work for the Dublin fire brigade but
I'm in a place just outside Dublin we moved out here about five years ago so I don't think
you see there a lovely house on the hill and a lot of trees a little bit of land deer come
into the garden red squirrels pine marhorns it's great because where I was it was city
I was always a city boy I mean I came up here I never owned a lawnmower before and then
you know now I have like now I have about five axes you know that type of way so it's
a big change but it's a nice change and it's fantastic for my headspace and you know just
to be on my way from where I lived before I was kind of beside the hospital so you just
hear the sirens you know from the ambulances you know up and down the street at night there
was no escape from it like so up here you know you don't hear anything you hear buzzards
flying overhead and or maybe the odd helicopter but other than that we're on the side of a
mountain looking down on the lake house house needs a lot of work but we're getting there
you know we're getting there luckily luckily there's no real pressure from the wife you
know she loves it here too so probably more than me if anything because she loves nature
and yeah we're happy ever it's interesting that you have those two perspectives because
it really blows me away that there's almost this perception that you know fire slash EMS
sit around doing nothing especially on the fire side you know waiting for a call and
always point out like if you live in a city or a suburban area just go outside your front
door what do you hear you hear sirens all the time and if you happen to be near a fire
station or a hospital then you're going to hear even more but the skewed perspective
is you know where you are now you could see how people are like oh they just sit around
waiting for a call because you're not seeing you know the immense level of responses that
actually happen especially in a city yeah i mean dublin it's a it's a busy city and
it's a growing city it's growing outwards but it's also it's growing upwards you know
we've a lot of high rise just in the last like five to ten years have gone in and they're
every day i mean there's cranes everywhere you're nearly you're being sent to addresses
now and they're not even updated on google maps the city's growing that fast so yeah
and we're just kept going constantly we do the we do the ambulance and we do the the
fire side of things so the ambulance is us 24 7 we cover each other for breaks but the
the ambulance never sits in the station very very seldom and you just kept going from the
moment you start so the night shifts are tough going and you're kind of you're kind of eating
food on the on the wing and but uh look it's kind of what we signed up for but um sometimes
it you know a couple of hours sleep on at night would be nice you know as regards when
you're working the ambulance but we just we just just keep going i guess you know i distinctly
remember being humbled by pete and it wasn't anything negative at all but you talked about
the fact that you have a combination of fire and ems in dublin specifically even though
other parts of ireland and the rest of the uk they're still two separate um you know
departments and then i was like oh so you know how long ago did you go to the american
model knowing that our history goes back some people think it's the 70s is actually the
60s and the freedom house is the the origin story of of paramedics specifically here in
the u.s but um it was way before that so talk to me about the history of ems and fire combination
through a dublin lens yes so um basically what they found was the best the best way
to survive if you're going to have a heart attack or whatever like i said if you're if
you have the backup of a fire crew that's ems trained i mean the your rate of survival
is just it's just like i don't know percentage wise i'm sorry i can't give you any figures
but like the fact that every every fireman in dublin every firefighter in dublin i should
say is a qualified paramedic you know so they can jump up they can jump in the back of the
ambulance they can be doing cpr you know they can be administering drugs so it's just a
great resource to have and also then if the ambulances are busy and someone's having a
stroke or even a heart attack like all our we carry defibs and everything on the trucks
i'm sure most most brigades do but we're very qualified and well used to using the gear
and we pretty much have them almost wrapped up ready to go as soon as they get there the
ambulance gets there so um yeah i'm not sure the exact date when they when they combined
it to what's been going on a long long time i think pete was saying it was the turn of
the century like late 1800s and obviously again you know paramedics and didn't look
like it does now but we were certainly in america because i'm more familiar with their
their history ironically um you know our pre-hospital medicine was basically a hearse you were either
alive or you were dead and then they started trying to keep them alive in the back of the
hearse and then obviously that evolved to ambulances and what we know now but he was
saying that you know the first versions of medical care combined with fire went back
to i think he said like 1892 or something it was it was way before we had you know i
remember seeing records of like the 1916 rise in which we have famous events in irish history
and and you can see the ambulance records you know and you know these old school records
big books and beautiful handwriting and it's like um a volunteer was brought to st james's
hospital uh suffering from um yeah wounds to the leg suffering from a gunshot in all
these amazing records and so that's like back in the early 1900s like so yeah i'm sure it's
um it's definitely there longer than i've been around just just about well speaking
of that then so you mentioned that your dad you know spent his career working in guinness
tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic so what
the rest of your family did and how many siblings yeah so um dad and mom both come from dublin
city um dad's born in a place called brunswick street which is basically beside the luffey
on the north side of the luffey and mom is from the same area kind of manor street and
then they would have moved out to clunt arf which is not that far from the city centre
um every side to see great place lovely lovely place to grow up um like there's a nature
reserve bull island is a is a is a nature reserve a lovely beach on our doorstep and
saint ans park great place to grow but it's a walking distance from town really like you
i've often did it if you couldn't get a taxi or no money for a taxi you could walk home
in you know maybe 45 minutes and um i have one older brother my older brother pat he's
a songwriter and then there's myself my brother john is a teacher kevin is web design and
then the youngest is my sister helen and she's a graphic designer so uh yeah five kids um
i was at the end dad's uh he played hurling um he said he worked in guinnesses he played
hurling passionate hurler who would have hurled with dublin and omro who were a club from
town and um my mother's father was the manager of the team so she'd be brought to the games
and end up falling in love with dad or vice versa whatever happened and that's how they
met was through the game and the sport of hurling and um my family it's called the gaelic
athletic games with gaelic football and hurling and handball as well actually so um they would
um they would have met through the ga and we were always raised as we regarded as a
ga family i suppose we all played irish games irish sports and uh it's it's stood to us
you know i mean we've we have a gaelic football team in the double fire brigade and we actually
have a hurling team this year in the double fire again and we've trips away and it's great
actually we've played against the new york fire brigade there um last year and yeah that's
that's pretty much it a big little family i suppose you call it when i was in school
you know obviously football was really big but i found myself playing hockey field hockey
and when i think about it it's not too dissimilar from hurling obviously you can't pick the
ball up and and you know hit it in the air so much but i don't think people realize just
how painful it is playing a sport with a stick and a ball that's not not soft you know so
it it was pretty uh pretty interesting because it was you know kind of ridiculed as a quote
unquote women's sport but actually i mean you know that kind of version of hockey and
i'm sure you know stepping up even more hurling um that's a pretty courageous sport to play
because it's not like you're wearing a bunch of pads and the ball certainly you know isn't
isn't made so often neither is the stick that you're holding so i've always got a lot of
admiration for for sports like that yeah it's it's a tough game for sure um hurling is the
fastest field game in the world i think ice hockey is the fastest game in the world played
on ice but as regards played on in the field on grass hurling is the fastest game and only
until recently where helmets made compulsory and like i'd often i'm fairness i would have
worn a helmet but i didn't always wear a face guard and a few marks and scars to prove it
when my dad played there was no helmets and he's he's got a lot of scars and that was
back in the days when you were you were stitched up you were seldom given an anesthetic and
yeah i've had a lot of a lot of injuries um one of my hands i had a serious operation
on that and yeah i've probably had about four operations let alone like kind of fractures
and broken ribs that type of thing from playing hurling but um it's a great game it's just
it's something you'd be very passionate about and um i miss it now that i'm not playing
anymore but um i got i got a fair workout i played into my quite in my into into my
40s from 48 now and probably played my last game about four or five years ago and uh i
just just couldn't catch the guys anymore so i time to pack it in maybe you know that's
the thing you can still be extremely athletic i mean i'm going to turn 50 in about two weeks
time but you can also deny the fact that even when you're probably doing well compared a
lot of people your age you're not 20 anymore and you start to see that gap kind of widening
and widening and it sucks yeah yeah i remember when i when i started playing um you'd come
up against the odd elf or the like and they'd be kind of turned a bit nasty you know they'd
be they'd be slower and you'd get a leg tackle or you might get a you know a crack across
the ankle or the hand or whatever and i remember saying to turn into one guy one of our younger
fellas and i said to him i said listen pal you you need to pack it in you know and he
kind of he was expecting a rail you know he'd hit he'd hit one of my guys i just wanted
you need to pack it in man you're you're going too slow you know you're you're getting nasty
and he looked at me and he kind of did realization like and i never saw him since so he kind
of he probably burst into tears then i was playing a match one time and a guy went by
me kind of not made a fool of me but i i just i just wanted to kill him you know kind of
a bit of a nasty streak in me and i was just like right it's time to pack it in pal if
you're if you start you know if that's going to be the way you're going to play you know
lose your sportsmanship it's time to time to call it a day you know so that's what i
did you know yeah that is it's humbling and it's your ego speaking you know i should still
be beating that person i've been playing it longer than that person but that's just not
the way life is the body does not hugely but you just just and you know slower and slower
and not as strong and not as explosive as you were and and it shows and younger people
that have not been doing something as long will start beating you and it's a it's a humbling
moment in middle age yeah true and i'm the last to listen to that advice so you know
people saying oh yeah you're not getting any younger because i think that can be used as
a cop out for lads you know not going to the gym anymore it takes too long to recover or
not going for runs and spotting the joints because you know some great athletes out there
like i'm just trying to keep going as best i can and well i like trying i'd probably
the same as yourself i kind of train for um for mental health like um as well it's just
great i feel sluggish if i'm not training you know so um yeah that's pretty much it
yeah i think that perspective understanding that you're slower though if you process it
the right way keeps you training yeah people get discouraged and if their ego gets them
i go fuck it i'm not going to play anymore this is stupid you know they keep you know
beating me rather than all right well you know i'm not catching that 22 year old anymore
but let me refocus and we'll get to to some of the things that you're training for now
in a minute when you talk about mental health um as we sit here now uh in 2024 we are starting
to really understand that it's not just what you and i saw in uniform but what happened
before we ever put the uniform on there's a big part of our overall mental health story
and journey when you look back at your early life were there any elements that contributed
to any struggles later in life yeah no i was looking like childhood was a great childhood
um i always played with as a team with a big brother looking out for me i had a few things
i i would have got i would have got beaten up once or twice as like you know like the
local bully type stuff you know that way like it was would have been bigger and older than
than me or my older brother like and uh and it's amazing i i one guy in particular like
um i was probably about 12 at the time and i remember i remember just tears in my eyes
and my my pals were there and there's nothing they could do and i remember saying to them
like you know someday i'm gonna be a big guy i'm gonna get him you know and and i kept
an image of this guy like a little thing i kept an image of this guy when i'd be training
when i wanted to quit you know even say you know whatever it was precipice just keep going
to anything and training learned how to box thinking of his head on the bag you know and
then it got to the stage where it was insane well you heard he 20s you know i i met him
you know and i i just kind of didn't have to hit him you know i just scared had a few
words of him you know scared a lot he was just all apologies you know he'd no idea but
but it's kind of like i don't know was it uh maybe it was a blessing in disguise because
it gave me focus it gave me something to maybe it's not a great thing to aspire to be able
to kick the shit out of someone but you know it was a lot to be said for it was kind of
many movies have they made a mess stuff like that you know you know seeking revenge and
the montage of the guy training comes along but i spent like at least 10 years training
training so never to feel like that again never have you know to feel vulnerable that
someone could just overpower me you know so um but as regards um yeah no you know usual
things you know grandparents dying pets dying that type of thing but nothing i didn't i
didn't bounce back from to be quite honest i'm lucky in that regard i i'm my dad is a
very very stoic man you know he he's been i'm my mother too and they've had a few tragedies
in their life and they just they wouldn't even tell you about it you know it would be
someone else or another relative would tell you about such and such what happened and
you would have had no idea because dad and mom wouldn't not that they're hiding it away
and like suppressing it as such but more that them you know life goes on you know that's just
the way it was a kind of a tougher generation in a lot of ways and i guess a lot of that
would have rubbed it off on me and my brothers and my sister i'd like to think it has anyway
it sounds like they and i don't know if i'm right or wrong in this but it sounds like maybe they
processed it properly because i think this is a kind of misunderstood element of trauma is if it's
left unaddressed then it simmers there there's a there's a mexican proverb that i quoted in my book
they think uh excuse me they tried to bury us they didn't know that we were seeds and i love that if
you push it down it's going to grow however i also from a hope perspective i truly believe that if
you process trauma that becomes strength that becomes resilience and so that is how you kind
of stop the dominoes from falling on that kind of multi-generational trauma so it sounds like maybe
you know because if it had been buried down and buried down that you'd probably be identifying
things where it was affecting them but if they had kind of you know the buck stops here i'm not
going to let that carry on into me raising my kids then i think that's a really powerful
perspective because that's what we need we need to deal with our own shit so we don't pass it
onto our children yeah 100 and i remember i actually remember my m with the time when
people really didn't show their emotion you didn't see you didn't see i didn't see men crying when
i grew up you know i don't remember seeing my dad crying maybe maybe at a funeral if even you know
but i remember my my granddad died who was it was jared who i was named after and his son my uncle
jair i'd say i was about 10 or 11 i was young enough but i distinctly remembered myself my
granddad were very very close like we used to go to his house after school every day and you know
play in the garden and he loved us and he i know he'd grow for me a love for me because i was you
know i was named after so my uncle jerry was a big strong man very very strong man sadly he he passed
but um i remember bringing me out to the garage and he's like jerry just come out here to me
and this is the day of the funeral after a funeral and he said okay i noticed you you haven't cried
you haven't cried yet you don't seem too upset you know it's and and i was i was probably in
shock i was just a kid you know i didn't process the whole thing properly but i hadn't i hadn't
cried and he said to me it's okay to cry and i said yeah no i know i know he goes it isn't men
cry too you know i was like okay okay yeah yeah grant and he gave me a hug and he says sorry and
and i realized and i was only a kid but i really remember this he wanted me to cry so he could have
a cry and i remember forcing myself because i didn't particularly want and he had his few tears
he wiped wiped him away and then he said now we won't say i won't we won't this is the RC could
this we keep this for ourselves and then he draws a big chest a big strong guy goes back into the
into the afters into the wake you know and no one knew when he could go in going there
was looking after little jerry you know i let him have i never said it to him and you know you're
great guy your character i miss him very very much actually but um yeah it was just a different
generation and there's a lot to be said for it i mean um maybe some people get too upset too
easy nowadays you know life life life is tough you know you're gonna have you know the young
guy you're gonna have girls break your heart you know there's just different things you're
gonna face and you need to have a little bit of i think a bit of resilience you know and you think
yeah that's just my opinion on it really so i think the where i see a kind of disconnect
is gratitude you know when because crying is a an incredible human emotion we literally do it the
moment we're born you know what i mean so it's there's nothing bad about it at all however
self-pity is a different conversation and i think the less you feel grateful for the more you feel
like a victim and i just shared a few things on social media recently one of them was just now
mark colman ufc legend um rescued his two parents from a fire in his home and then went back in to
try and rescue his dog which is called hammer which is his fighting name and he wasn't able
to get it ends up being intubated um because i'm sure he inhaled superheated gases um and they just
just shared a video like two hours ago of him extubated and he's hugging his family and just
is so grateful for his life for having saved his parents but then is also in tears about losing his
dog like those are raw real emotions you know but i think what happens is if you if you also don't
wake up and realize just how lucky you are to be born in ireland in england in in america you know
and there's no war outside your front door you know and you've got food in the fridge and there's
clothes to put on then that feeds into that victim mentality which is i think you know what is
diluting the very healing positive mental health and cry a men crying conversation because we're
surrounded by people that you know some people that burst into tears over everything these days
because you know there is that entitlement and that lack of gratitude so i think you know the
pendulum hopefully will swing back to the middle where we have some grit and some resilience but
we're not afraid to cry when we need to cry yeah yeah um you're saying we cry when we're born i
actually when i was born i seemed like i had a pint of guinness and i got i got a taxi home myself
you know yeah no but um no you're right i think you like i'm lucky that i i've i've traveled
a lot i do a bit of volunteer work actually in connection with the fire brigade over in africa
and a bit of building work over there and it humbles you you know you're seeing kids with
great kids and they're like someone will have sores on their face and you know that that poor kid
has hiv and when you come back next year that kid's not going to be there you know so i've never
taken for granted how lucky we were i was growing up you know we weren't we weren't we weren't
spoils by any means but we were we were spoils when it came to then you know when it came to
love in the house you know we were we were we were um yeah it was a very very lucky like but i and i
appreciate that you know and uh yeah don't get me wrong i've shed a few tears here and there like
but um it's it's amazing the way different things it's nearly as i get older now i maybe
beyond becoming a bit more sensitive in the old age but um different things hit me you know different
things that are unfair kind of hit me more or you know and someone someone you lose and there's one
of the guys in work there he had a bit of a turn he's okay now and i remember just thinking how
fair it was there's a great guy fit guy looks after himself and he's almost afraid you're going
to lose him you know and luckily he didn't but uh it's just heartbroken i was just like man am i
having a breakdown here or something like i found myself on the couch with the dog um after a night
shift just kind of tears in my eyes thinking about man i can't you know um there's a great poem and
no one's sure who wrote it they some blame say it was a scottish writer there's of course the irish
we claim it's irish so um but it's called uh tell them now it's my dad's favorite poem and it has
had such an impact on my life and i can't even remember it recited but there's a few lines it's
basically it finishes a man can't read his grave stone when he's dead so the gist of it is if you
think someone's great there's these things i want to do a great job or a great person tell them
this is no point when they're you know standing over at the grave when they're gone saying that
he was such a great fellow or you know they were you know so it's something i've tried to do more
and more often if someone has been sound or you know just just let them know because unfortunately
you leave it too late and they'll never know and then it's a nice thing to do you never know who
who can use a leg up or a boost from time to time and sometimes i've done it once or twice and
a couple of months later i've got a phone call saying you jerry you didn't realize what that
meant to me at the time you know i was actually in a bad spot and out of the blue you just rang me
saying listen man i think you're smashing fella and uh it's it's a great thing to it's not an
easy thing to do i think it takes uh it takes guts to tell someone you know because they're like are
you okay you know is everyone okay i'm saying no listen i'm 100 i just want to let you know
you're a legend and they're like okay and eventually they get it you know and uh so i've
tried that's something um i try and do from time to time you know so uh there's a quote from it's
attributed to ann frank is sometimes you kind of think that someone said it for years and then all
of a sudden the internet says uh they never said that actually but regardless this is what it's
supposed to have been said by her um the the dead get more flowers than the living because grief is
more powerful than gratitude yeah i like that yeah yeah i think i've actually heard that before
it's brilliant yeah it's a brilliant but that's exactly what i'm talking about you know it's um
just let them know you know it's kind of it you put your heart in your sleeve type stuff but uh
you know even um i've rung up the odd uh manager that used to uh look after me as a kid you know
because all these guys are giving up their their saturdays their sundays their midweek to train us
for nothing you know there's no money in it for them it's an amateur sport and just to say listen
just thanks thanks for that and then a guy gave me a gave me a crack at the dublin hurling team and
then i rang him up years later and you know and just said listen like just thanks for the opportunity
like you know the fair play to you like oh it's not a bother you know you deserved it whatever
i said yeah but even so you're the only one that you know so um just little things like that and
um i had a pal there who passed away a guy in my ga club an older man he's ex-army tough as nails
lovely guy and he wasn't well and i rang him up and um i don't want to keep it to you but i just
told him what i thought of him you know the regard i held him and i was just delighted i got to say
those things to him you know before he passed on a few months later but yeah it's about been grateful
isn't it really that's what it comes down to absolutely well speaking of poetry obviously
we'll get into you know your writing currently but when you were in school were you already
kind of diving into poetry or writing no coming here diving in i was trying to dive out of school
to be quite honest with you you and me both yeah i wasn't an ace you i was smart you know the usual
brains to burn but doesn't apply himself type thing and my brother pat was very academic yeah
and he went before me you know so that was kind of always in his shadow but um i love maths i loved
art and that but i actually had dyslexia which wasn't discovered until i was probably about um
um i'm not sure maybe late primary school but even then there was no dispensation for it he
didn't get extra time in exams or anything like that but what i did get it got some lessons
people who understood it like some english teachers and that really brought me on but i
look back at some of my old things i used to write and like just putting letters backwards and stuff
like that which isn't i don't suffer from that anymore thank god i don't think you can kind of
um kind of get over dyslexia such as something you're always going to have but you can you can
learn to deal with it it doesn't really affect me now day to day and and then it's seen now as
actually because i'd written a poem about it and dyslexia ireland were like all over it but then
in my description of the poem i described it as a demon and they were like no no no you can't say
that demon doesn't seem to me that's a bad word now you know and i'm like well i'm not changing
it because to me it was a demon that held me back even everything from i don't know even
even i don't sound silly but like even in relationships with girls and that like because
sooner or later you're reading menus or she wants you to read her horoscope or that and you'd be
fucking nervous as hell like so um but yeah like i mean i did uh you know i obviously got into the
fire be able to go to college um but i just had to work work harder at it i still i never really
enjoyed reading but there's so many gifted people like einstein even my favorite poet uh yates is
dyslexic um so there's a there's a string in them you know richard branson mamadali there's
seen it you just have a different way of looking at things and actually since doing the poetry
i'm only doing the poetry the last couple of years and the amount of people i've spoken that
are poets and said yeah yeah i'm dyslexic as well like you know a different way of looking
at it and it's nothing to do with your writing your vocabulary it's it's your turn of phrase
is the way you look at things so in a way i've been a great advantage in that regard when it comes to
poetry brilliant well i know that you went into the building industry before you entered the fire
service so you're in school walk me through your journey into to that side yeah i would have always
um i would have always been um doing kind of building work especially carpentry and
tiling that type of thing and then worked in sports but there's no there's no money in sports
there's no you know yourself growing up there's very few gyms if they were gyms they were like
spit on the floor gyms that were just full of the bouncers you know it's just big steroid guys you
wouldn't have athletes per se in them enough that off sorry um but yeah i got into the building
trade and then i i am i was working away doing that and lifting blocks doing carpentry doing
everything really i worked for a small kind of builder and we basically did everything we took
the foundations and we put the we put the chimney cows on from start to finish we did the decorating
the tiling did the whole lot building houses and then i would have spent time in the states and i
like that i was i was doing framing i was doing doing real thing and concreting and that was
tough work and i've done a lot of tough jobs but and concreting in california in the east
you know just using the jackhammer and you're just you're there with like just watching like
your sweat drip off you're like just trying to get water into you and then i did roofing in boston
and geez that was tough going i remember um i was only i was about 19 um aid have started on a
thursday and i was the only one that went back on the friday you know it was that was that's how
tough it was it was actually what got you to america how did you get over there to work
i was i was brought over at playing gaelic football actually i'm playing hurling so you'd
be brought over for the summer and it was great because you'd get um your flights and accommodation
paid for and all you got to do is you know play ball and then they get you work as well
so it's been three summers in boston and then when i was in boston i'd be flown down to new york
and probably every second sunday to play a match down there in gaelic park or van corp and park
you just be flown down for the day play a game get a couple of quid come back and then i went to
um san francisco uh to play over there play hurling over there and football and then i just fell in
love with the place there and i ended up staying there for a while and uh then i ended up going
coming home i came home because i got the fire brigade to be quite honest and i'd done the exam
and then next thing i got called for an interview so there was no i'd no phone over there at the
time so my mom knew i'd probably be in the the irish bar where i used to work used to do the
door in the irish bar so a place called steven's green and they then they rang the bar sunday
morning i was there having my breakfast and i have to get home you're after getting an interview for
the fire brigade and i was like oh god you know because i was because over there i was kind of
set up as best i could be you know and the car and the girlfriend and this and that and but i came
home and i arrived back in america or back in ireland rather from california the day before my
interview i kind of had my hair bleached long kind of bleached white kind of blonde
shaved my hair off and number one all over borrowed a suit off my brother and just went in
for the interview like totally kind of unprepared you must have the best tan of any uh candidate
that walks through that door yeah i had a great tan and he's going okay i had a guy interview me kind of a
well-known character in the double firebate though i've never met him since a guy called wadji
that was his nickname anyway but he had a big strong guy and he had an old kind of indian ink
tattoo on his forearm and he's saying i see you played football in boston for colin kills and i was like yeah that's right yeah yeah did you um were you there yourself and he goes
then i was there in 83 with the fire brigade and i was like oh jeez great isn't it where did you where
did you go out and he's kind of looking at me going listen listen this is an interview
you're a chat and then he then he said to me he said soldier um do you think that him
being physically strong and physically fit has a major role to play in being a firefighter
and i was totally unprepared you know so i was just kind of went there well yeah i said i hope it does
i said it's my best asset he just he just started laughing they all started laughing just shook their
heads going all right okay but anyway whatever happened it worked you know so it was luckily i
did a lot of experience you know playing as a team working as a team that type of thing so that stood to me
you know so and the construction background too was that valued i mean you know when i went to
california worked as a firefighter i mean the the depth that we had to understand building construction
especially on the truck companies when we're standing on those roofs and cutting was was
pretty intense and a lot of the people that were you know older than me had that construction
background they were usually the ones teaching us so how was that viewed your actual hands-on
experience when it came to you as an applicant yeah absolutely it was and then in particular when
i started um like you'd be going into a remember like going into a building before and they um it
was apartments i think it was a post fire or somewhere trying to the boss wanted the ceiling
taken down and he was like a junior manager like oh yeah get the ceiling hook and i'm looking at
him with a ceiling hook because all you do pretty much with ceiling hook in my opinion is punch holes
in it you know it has its job but i said i might grab a shovel if that's okay and i don't know if
you've tried taking down a ceiling with a shovel it's so much faster i was taking them down and
slab i think i was in one room and i was i came out of it like you know two minutes i'm finished
where and they were looking at me well they'd like had a little square hole like you know so but even
stuff like when it came to um even heating systems like you'd have an idea of how things work you
know and then and then i actually recently enough there i did in building services engineering
in college and and that's helped me a lot you know because it's all all solar all that type of
stuff you know so having just having i'm not an expert by any means but just having an idea of
how things function how a house a new household you know ventilation systems all that type of
thing and buildings and that but i mean it's a resource you know yourself i mean if you're
if you're if you're on the truck and you're going to a something an electrical fair and you and you
you could very well have an electrician sitting in the in the back of the truck you're going to use
that you know so um definitely yeah definitely useful and it's definitely um yeah definitely
a value i guess absolutely i was blown away in in california they use what's called rubbish hooks
so rather than a pipe pole it's this kind of fork that's probably six seven inches wide and it's
got two two prongs and so when you punch through the ceiling and obviously it's drywall here
those prongs grab the piece and almost the whole freaking slab comes down the first time
so again you know right tool for the job depending on obviously what the construction is of that
building but um yeah and i'm sure those came from people that understood construction and they're
like well if we were going to remove this piece this is the tool we'd use we wouldn't use that
little tiny hook for you know plaster and lathe for example we'd use this massive massive hook
so yeah so i wouldn't have been the person to go to but i think that's what you know when you're
talking about diversity in the fire service i think that's that's the real valuable conversation of
course we need to have all of the people that are in communities reflected in you know in uniform
but diversity is also you know who's good with animals who can speak these languages who's got
the construction experience so that within a station hopefully you've always got a go-to man
or woman that's the expert in that field yeah absolutely i mean we've got an art crew and he
works and he worked with lifts and elevators you know and then he's just so he's just so
knowledgeable you know he just knows you know because how many times are you going to go to
someone stuck in the lift i mean it goes great to have you know and then i'm just trying to think
of someone to perfect you really all sorts of one guy used to deliver coal you know another guy's
ex-army you know he's very you know physically strong great guy you know so everyone brings
their own and i think actually some some people forget that you know the biggest resource we have
is ourselves you know like and especially if you get a say an officer on transfer who's not familiar
with the crew they don't know they don't ask sometimes who've we got anyone any experience
on this you know you could be going to it i'm trying to think so but you know you could have
someone that's an expert in that field that you're going to you know so um yeah it's definitely worth
that yeah yeah you know i've seen um i've seen people discount experts on calls you know i'm
talking about the you know you go to a facility well the people that work there are going to be
the experts in that thing and they're kind of like you know shushed i would just we got it we'll
handle it and i remember standing there like this is the person that you said that's an expert in
the lift or this warehouse that we're going to or the paper mill or whatever it is
and so you know having the humility to to ask the people at the place that you're going to
the expert might not be on your crew there might be someone that called 911 that you can use as a resource
yeah 100 you know and um yeah just just a little thing you know if you're if you're used to
being around tools or you know you're going to be more like i consider myself very comfortable
very comfortable too i use consoles every week you know because i'm working at my own house here
and um i mean even today i was up scaffolding you know and uh so i think there's horses horses
don't get me wrong anyone could be trained on something but like say if um if two guys are going
for say um an mur course you know a marine emergency response unit and one guy one guy is
an expert swimmer and the other guy can't swim you know you're gonna i'm gonna lean towards the
guy that can swim or if i'm doing a high rise and but trying to put a high rise team together
and one guy's an ex scaffolder i'm gonna you know i'm gonna lean towards that guy you know
there's um there's guys and girls there we're coming in with great experience and
maybe sometimes it's it can be overlooked but uh generally a good a good scout if you like
we'll spot the talent and use it that's important thing absolutely well walk me through what it was
like for you as a new recruit you talked about being all being paramedics and obviously having
the fireside so what does that educational journey look like for a brand new recruit in
dublin fire brigade yeah so we would have been in the training center um for six months and
in that time we would have done our paramedic training as well which i found the toughest
because there's a lot of there's a lot of um a lot of reading involved in that it was quite tough
and it's actually got tougher i mean the amount of drugs we would have to know has at least
doubled if not quadruples nearly the new recruits coming out now but i would have been sent up to
um a station called uh thingless uh things would have been a one pump station in other words we'd
one ambulance and one truck uh would have been quite a busy station as well which is a great
place to serve your apprenticeship so there was flats there these flats called the ballywool flats
and they would have been you know concrete floors concrete walls concrete ceilings and we were
getting a lot of fires and then some of them were derelict but i mean it's just literally like going
into a pizza oven but my first time going into one um i was going in one of the senior guys
and he said to me he said he said to me grab there grab there and he put me put my my hand onto his
the back of his set and i'm kind of i wasn't shown this you know this i was supposed to you know
and he said you grab there and don't let go do not let go and stay you know stay there and then
um i'm like okay so we did and we we did we put out a fire and um couldn't see anything
blacks with smoke and then he said right he brought me in afterwards and he showed me
we're probably about seven stories up the window which wasn't there anymore was only about a foot
off the ground so i could have you know and it was a mickey mills fire as a dirty but you would have
possibly i'd like to think i wouldn't if we use what i use my search procedures but
there's a good chance it could have gone out that fecking window you know for pretty much
and nothing for it and he knew that and that's why you know just the experienced guy knowing
what to do and showing me why we do it and then of course when it came my turn to show
to show him the new guy did the exact same thing but it was a great great place that i'm very busy
and close to a lot of motorways so we got a lot of uh a lot of car crashes that type of thing
and then of course we would have come across unfortunately a lot of suicides that type of thing
and unfortunately all ages young girl at one time you know and then yeah different things
different things like that very very busy and you were watched out for and i was only in the job a
couple of weeks and so i like it when it came across a very bad incident involving a baby and
it was a bizarre scenario and something i had to deal with and i did i did my best but anyway baby
baby was dead but there was no one on my crew who had dealt with this particular thing they'd
been to cut deaths and whatever but they didn't have to do what i had to do at the time
so there was no one really to advise me but they just um they just kept an eye on me like you know
what i mean made sure i was okay so that was my first introduction like i was only in the job
like two weeks operational two weeks and i'm there man this is this is tough going but i was happy in
the fact that possibly because i was just fresh out of training that um all my cpr procedures at
the time were like spot on i was on the money so there's i gave the kid whatever chance i could
you know but um yeah so i was a really eye-opening um experience and then from there i was sent into
the control room where i spent three years in there and then you see another side of the job
i didn't particularly um didn't particularly like the control room but i got to see a different
aspect of the job i would have preferred to be out on the you still are rotated out you know to
keep your skills up and especially you have to keep your skills up on the ambulance and stuff like
that so um whenever there's an opportunity to be rotated to the to the outside if you like
i would always jump on that you know and then but that's pretty much it i was i think i'm 18 years in
just about a week ago march 6th of march so um yeah i still have a grow for the job you know
i still enjoy going to work which is the main thing so um the control room would that be what
we call the dispatch center here people answering yeah yeah the exact same thing yeah yeah so i've
asked this funny enough quite a lot recently i've had dispatchers on on the show um what was the
interesting contrast that you witnessed or experienced between the voice on the radio
that some of us sometimes get impatient with when we're actually in the stations versus being that
voice and taking the calls yeah i am it was it's tough going it's it's might sound strange but
it's a very very stressful environment and i wasn't really prepared for that i mean you could have an
elderly person ringing you and they're say an elderly lady ringing you and their husbands had
a heart attack and a lot of the questions although it's a proven system but a lot of the questions
are yes or no you know like is that person breathing and someone comes back to you i don't know
you gotta get that answer you know people are in shock that are in panic you know and
it's not a very um i don't know what the word is i'm not gonna say humane but it's not a very it's
not a natural conversation if you like and sometimes you have to kind of deviate i think
from the regimental yes or no black and white type questions and you can get in trouble for doing that
because what you've something going to it you know but i mean when people aren't giving you
they don't know people are in panic you just kind of the human side of things has to come in and
you have to kind of really um i don't know how to explain it really but um yeah it's stress it
really plays on your mind more you know when you hear bad calls coming in i mean it's just i mean
you know one of the guys got a call and uh health help my voice got nice she's gonna stab me blah
blah and then next thing you hear the knife going in you know this is like so he kind of listened
to a murder you know so like that's bizarre like you would wish that on anyone and then but then
there's the there's the good calls which would be considered where you've given cpr over the phone
and uh they've you know the person has survived and then you can hear you can hear in the
background the lads arriving on the ambulance or the fire truck taking over you know you're going
okay i hear the lads there now i'm going to leave you too okay thanks you know so um
um yeah so um just a different side of things but i was i was surprised on there how uh
stressful a situation it could be i think it's because you're kind of helpless in a way you know
it's like it's like been at a football match and been on being a sub you want to get on there and
do something but you can't really you know what i mean you can do what you can you know like you can
shout and cheer the lads on but you can't really have an impact as such and that's how i felt when
i was in the control room and in that regard i didn't think it was for me but having said that
a great experience i learned how the other side works you know sometimes why have i been sent to
this why have we been sent to this this isn't our area such and such a got to this you understand
why you know um so it's yeah a tough enough job actually so um it's interesting listening to
you know some of the dispatchers and some of the people that had to do dispatch during their career
and it's the same as some of the california law enforcement agencies they have to go to
corrections first so they work in the jails before they ever go into the streets but as you said i
think one of the observations from hearing all these is you know firstly some of these longer
shifts i mean these dispatchers arrive at you know when it's either early morning or late at night so
they arrive in darkness they're in darkness all day looking at screens and they leave in darkness
there's it seems to be a common denominator about the stress of not knowing the outcome of these
calls because i mean it's hard enough for us responding to know you know the doctors and
nurses and stuff do they tell us if they died they make it um but then the big one that really stands
out is if you and i go on a call and we go to that cardiac arrest but we're bagging we're doing cpr
we're picking the patient up we're loading them so there's a physical exertion but the dispatcher
that heard the murder that's what they're still sitting in a chair there's no physical offload
to kind of flush the body of the cortisol and the other hormones and stressors yeah absolutely
and we say there but the physical end of it so the fitness part of it comes into into play as well
i mean to say like sitting is the new cancer you're sitting you're sitting at a computer staring
into a screen and when you're used to uh for me it's come on from an active background before i
came into the fire brigade and you know and the fire brigade itself is you know physically demanding
and next thing you're to me you're like what's a better word like a desk job and uh i didn't enjoy
that end of it you know having said that it's a great way if you were to get injured you know if
you were to to to maybe have a long-term back injury or something something like that or hurt
yourself and you're not fit to be on the fire ground you can go into the control into the
control room you know so we would have some some of the walking wounded would be in there
or else some of the senior men that are that just don't want to be um you know during the
long nights on the ambulance you can go into the control room you know because you know it takes
your toll on your body so maybe it's the better option and then but you can fall into bad habits
you know you have to keep an eye i think on your on your diet and your your your mental uh
your mental health like make sure you're staying active and keeping the body moving keeping the
mind moving so like you said it's um there's no escapism you know you're just uh in a room with
other guys with your headset on taking calls and every call you get is a call from the doctor
call is the distress call there's no one ringing up to you know to tell you good news wish you
happy birthday yeah it's just all it's bad news you know so yeah yeah it's tough going on
so i want to move forward to poetry but before we do you mentioned 18 years now in the dublin fire
brigade when you look back what are some of the the career calls i mean they doesn't have to be
a big fire or anything but what was some of the the memorable calls when you reflect um yeah there's
some kind i guess uh kind of been to a lot of different things um i suppose there's one in
particular right now is actually on the ambulance that we were sent to a domestic fire and we're
pretty close to it and we got there ahead of the the fire truck so i'm with my pal and we're there
in our like our navy combats navy shirts and there's people outside and on the screen like
there's people in there there's people in there you know we're like you're kind of going i don't
see you running in you know that type of way it's like it's expected of us and them but uh yeah we
we kind of looked at the heaves and we figured it was already kicked we looked into the letterbox
the door was locked kicked in the door and like what it would take well we obviously took a bit
of risk but we kind of knew we were both capable and i remember there was um one woman on the stairs
in front of us i figured she was okay and we went into a room then and there was two women in there
so i went for the furthest woman i was pretty uh that's why i had to hold my breath i picked her up
uh carried her out and that was as i as i'm carrying her out um the the fire truck arrived
you know so basically it's natural rescue which can be frowned upon but like we did the business
we're happy enough with it and so we saved the the ladies but we brought them actually we brought
that woman to um to the hospital and we're hanging around she was getting treated for smoke inhalation
and stuff and they seen this guy arrived and i kind of recognized him and it turns out he he
came up to me he goes uh you uh you saved you saved my mother from uh from that fire i heard
it was yourself and i was like yeah no bother and we were looking at each other it turns out we
were in school together we weren't we weren't great mates or that you know but uh we were in
art class together and he's like tear the vine and i said no lol yeah he was uh he'd gone into the
army and he he still starts laughing he goes i don't know what to say pal he says uh last time we
saw each other i think we were getting thrown out of art class and then now you're after saving me
mother from a fire and we just had a home you know it's just well i suppose the world it's a small
world but dublin is such a small place you know but i hadn't seen that guy in whatever you know
15 years so that was kind of a nice story like but uh had a nice outcome but uh yeah i don't know
it's loads of different things uh god this is usual the usual thing where you're asked to tell
a joke and you can't think of a joke yeah i am terrible at jokes i butcher them anyway so
yeah well with with that scenario for a second something that jumps to me in in the u.s here
when we're on what we call the rescue so it's the ambulance but we also have scbas and our bunker
gear and some tools in there as well so when you're assigned to the ambulance that's there's no fire
gear on that vehicle okay um yeah we wouldn't uh no we'd carry fire extinguishers and um
not really no you wouldn't know you wouldn't be expected it's to be honest we were pretty frowned
upon um at the time when i did that it was it was okay you're told you know you weigh up the odds
you know but um really you shouldn't be committing yourself but to be honest which if we could hear
the sirens you know we knew the lads weren't too far away so it was uh it was well worth the risk
but um no generate the ambulance the ambulance we would always send an ambulance to a domestic
fire you know even if there's no one injured they'd still be on the on the pda to be sent so
um yeah but generally no you would you wouldn't be uh you wouldn't be expected to do that
under any circumstances nowadays right i want to hit one more area before you go to poetry
talk to me about Camino de Santiago oh yeah yeah yeah the Camino de Santiago so uh yeah that's
it's a walk it's a it's a pilgrimage an old pilgrimage and like a like any good catholic
pilgrimage it has to be a fair bit of pain and so the thing is that you you walk to this uh you
walk there's different routes but the route i did is you start in france and you walk across it's
just over 800 kilometers i think it's 820 kilometers to the town of santiago uh not sure
the tradition it dates back where i think prisoners used to have to go they were released but for a
penst they used to have to go to the coast and get an oyster shell and bring it back the oyster
shell to prove they've been to the coast it was kind of like a punishment i think and i could be
getting that completely wrong but anyway i had decided i wanted to do this with like i time off
work i built up a few weeks and um so i was in town with the guy who does my tattoos right my
friend tommy in classic ink and i said listen i'm gonna do this walk across spain he goes what are
you talking about i said yeah i'm gonna go next week i'm gonna go to spain i'm gonna walk across
spain and he goes as far as that i said well in total because i'm gonna walk out to the coast
it's gonna be like a thousand kilometers and he's like geez man that's insane i'm sure
that's grass was walking you know and a guy walked by in a suit lovely suit with an umbrella and a
briefcase and he goes i dare you to do a dress like that i was like wow and he goes go on i dare
you and all right so yeah so so anyway long story short i did and as it turned out then it got a
bit of traction i ended up getting this one of our top designers like um louis goblins like he kind
of designs our tailor suits for the stars he gave me a suit like this lovely yeah well it was lovely
it's not anymore a black pinstriped suit and i had an umbrella you know the twirly handle and
i had a briefcase but um but the problem with the briefcase is i couldn't bring any luggage i
couldn't bring a sleeping bag i um you know i i think i'd like two pairs of boxes two pairs of
socks and then two t-shirts you know so after the first night we walked i walked about um i met
actually a fireman a pal of mine bob legged we wouldn't have known each other that well i would
have passed him in the corner you know different shifts in tarot street and uh we spent the he's
there where are you staying tonight i was there i don't know i have nothing organized nothing booked
these are these are man you have to have something booked the places so anyway he i end up staying in
a hotel that he he had gotten and when i when we arrived there there was a woman there she's like
where's your luggage and i'm like not this is it like a briefcase and she was like she was really
kind of insulted you know i was like jesus this isn't going well like you know so um she was kind
of giving out to me so this is a serious thing this is a serious pilgrimage and you know you need to
this isn't the game blah blah blah so i'm there in a pair of shorts and flip-flops and i was like
turned to bob i said that that didn't go well and he goes she's can't wait can't wait for the morning
when she sees you in a suit so but she ended up she was lovely like and then but we started
walking and i think we did about 30k but i had to go on and do about another 10k because i was tight
on time so like my average distance was 42 kilometers a day but after the first night
i remember saying now i was flying fit at the time i said this isn't physically possible you know i'm
not going to be able to do this to carry the suitcase and that it's just like you think carrying
a suitcase not a bother and that isn't a briefcase either but after a mile or two and after 10 miles
after 20 miles you know it's it's just it's just ridiculous so i did everything i threw out like
my handbook and i just pulled the maps out of it i had a swiss swiss army knife i
used my finger i cut my hair cut my toenails cut my nails cut the ends off my laces any access weight
i had i just got rid of and throughout my t-shirt my spare t-shirt you name it i cut the end off
i was wearing a shirt and tie i cut the ends off my tie to make that lighter anything i could do i
squeezed out my toothpaste half it and then i realized the tube is kind of the heaviest part
of it so i had a bit of cling film like a little bag i squeezed the rest of it into a cling film
bag and rolled up so i had a little bag of toothpaste i cut my toothbrush in half everything i
i could think of you know trying to be and then but i did it but the only problem was i looked
like a bit of a lunatic especially after i you know this tube got a bit tattered and i go to
some places and i try and get accommodation and there was a few kind of head cases i guess you'd
call them that just drifted along the Camino spent their lives drifting along the Camino and i ended
up actually befriended a few of them but i looked like them and i couldn't get accommodation so
sometimes i'd have to end up walking through forests that's true yeah night time and just
had to sleep rough once or twice and yeah so some nasty stuff like but a great experience
but i don't know if i would do it again it was about 10 years ago now but yeah it was a good
crack good experience so yeah it's longer yeah because i was i was seeing her at the time i
hadn't met Steph but i kind of kept that quiet when i met her as i tell you i'm hearing you
that's one your uh your match.com profile pics then yeah yeah but i remember actually walking
through um this i was like that i got turned away from a hostel and i was told to go you know to go
to the next town and it was pretty dark so 10 o'clock at night so you're just walking through
by moonlight with no torch or anything and i had to go through this um a trail through a forest
and in this forest there's supposed to be wolves okay and i'm like now obviously you're walking
during the day there's no problem but at night time i'm by myself so i'm there thinking right
okay don't get freaked out you know um man up here so i kind of devised this now right if i do get
faced with a wolf i'm gonna have to have a plan so like you're wrong you're you're tired you're
hungry you're sore you've blisters everything's stuck the mind plays a few tricks on you and i
was there thinking okay if i'm faced with a wolf i'm gonna look it in the eye and i'm gonna give
it a chance to be friendly and i said and if it does well and good i'm gonna walk into the next
town i'll have my loyal wolf by my side and i'm really like believing this okay and said but but
on the other hand if it jumps for me i'm gonna drive my my the point of my umbrella through its
throat and kill it you know and i'm there okay granted and so now i have my plan i'm happy out
and i'm kind of using my umbrella as like a like a blind man stick to make sure i don't walk into
trees that's how kind of how dark it is and so kind of looking in front of me and next thing
i kind of barely make it out in the moonlight between the branches like a little fluffy bunny
rabbit ran across me and like nearly ran off my foot i almost i almost shit myself and i'm
leaning on my breath i didn't kind of recovering from the fright and just kind of laughing and
shaking my head going like i'm gonna need a plan b if i meet a wolf you know what i mean
because or a plan a for a rabbit maybe that was the problem yeah maybe i wasn't prepared
but no great experience i met some met some great people and then yeah great stories i actually kept
a diary and i should write about it really because i i kept a journal and uh did a few sketches and i
i had a i was given a like a dictaphone from a rt radio who are like our national radio to um
they wanted to kind of do a documentary on it and i still had so i interviewed a lot of people on the
way but when i came home i did an interview for a different radio station and um so they couldn't
use it then i didn't wasn't aware of this but uh they in fairness they gave me the they gave me
a copy of the thing i still haven't listened to it actually but i should maybe write about it
years to come you know it's on the list well i'm glad i asked that question there's some pretty
entertaining stories there well speaking of uh poetry so you mentioned about you know struggling
with dyslexia when you were younger now you've got a you know i'm assuming if i got my timeline
right like 15 years or so in the fire service under your belt what brought you to the world
of poetry i mean were you reading it first and then what made you empowered enough to
start writing yourself yeah so i actually i actually got injured um outside of work i'd
hurt my hand very badly up a dog bite actually and i ended up going there doing some ligament
and tendon damage and i went badly septic and of course when it happened i did nothing about it
i said i'd just go home and then i was picking up scaffolding at the time actually and uh had to
get that home and got that home unloaded it stopped for an indian on the way you know the usual stuff
um did everything a paramedic should not do if you like picking up rusty scaffolding and stuff
and then but the next day my my i didn't sleep that night my hand was in bits of badly swollen
and we were in work the next morning so i drove into work i wanted to one of the advanced paramedics
to see it because i was trying to avoid this sitting in hospital all day to be quite honest
and then he was just like man this that's bananas you need to go straight away to the hospital and
then long story short i sent from one hospital i sent to a different hospital and then
i ended up in another hospital then for a week and two operations on it and i was fairly concerned
about my about my job and about being able to work in my house and someone had sent me
one of the one of the girls in the job actually she'd sent me um one of these um you know you can
listen to a poetry you can listen to a poet a guy uh steven james smith a Dublin poet very good he
does uh spoken word stuff and i was listening to it i was like this is very good and i used to write
a write a little bit of poetry maybe just messing around and and i was like man i'm gonna start
i'm gonna start doing this so i basically wrote my first poem lying in a hospital bed
um because i was kind of you know in there as well you don't sleep i mean the guy beside me
he was like groaning all night and to be honest with you i wanted to kill him but then
you got talking to him the next day the poor guy suffering from krone's disease you know you're
like jesus christ you know so you're like you're not you're not the worst you're never the worst
going to hospital as they say but um yeah i started writing then and then i couldn't work
um so i was just looking in the house here just literally sitting on a rocking chair just
practicing doing my physio trying to move my hand and then just just writing and it's like i'd had
all these years of bothered poetry i'd sent one or two of them to uh to my brother and he's like
you know this this is really good you know you should send it to um a guy a guy called Michael
McGlynn who i used to uh used to give me grinds when i was a kid for dyslexia we actually met up
by chance over in africa um small world stuff again and he was like look jerry this is just
this is really really good i'm probably a bit biased but let me send this to a couple of english
professors and it just went from there and then you know i just do i just do this for sport but
uh i started um yeah i kind of won a couple of competitions started getting a little bit of
recognition and it's not it's not it's not that but it's just that
my poetry i say for everyday people like a lot of that can relate to it you know um so
show to a few of the guys and work and they like it and i might give them say give them a copy of
a poem and then one guy in particular uh came back in the next day he says uh see this poem you gave
me and i need you to sign it for me your wife wants to put it on the wall you know so just
a little things like that so but it's been tipping away now and then um the job actually asked me to
write a poem for them for the the recruits passing out last year and i when i was asked
to write it it coincided with one of our senior who had passed away a guy called paul hand and paul was
a real stock guy a bit of a bit of a legend to say the least and i couldn't make the funeral we
were on days and i couldn't make the funeral and i was a little bit upset about that but
i said a little prayer for him and when i wrote this poem i thought about paul and kind of
firefighters of his ilk if you like who i believe never really leave the fire ground and i wrote the
firefighters call and then i showed it to uh to the guy troy who asked me to write and he loved
it it went through the ranks through the through the training center all the way up to the chief
and next thing they asked me what i recited at the pass out and then from there it kind of got a
little bit of traction and now currently we're selling uh the poem and we're selling for say for
20 euros i'm not sure what that is in dollars but uh 100 of the money is going to the charity it's
a charity called oscar's kids which deals with um kids with terminal cancer it's it's a it's a
wonderful charity really and it's uh it's one that's close to our hearts and in the double
fire brigade um so a lot of these they get um these kids get inaugurated into the
into the fire brigade they're giving their little shirts they're giving their little uniforms
and it's a great idea one of the guys steven cleary was his like his idea um and it's it's
going from strength to strength so yeah we've raised a few quid so far um and i'm hoping to
raise a lot more there's a lot of um like to be honest uh which james like the likes of me
been on this show now if people maybe hear the poem and want to get it i'm hoping i'm in the
process of trying to set up my website that i can sell something for from it you know it's uh i'm
not great at that stuff so i'm getting a little bit of help with that but it's awkward enough you
can set up a website which i've done but to sell something from it you need a kind of a business
website and there's a few ins and outs and then all the money's going to charities that's a
difference a different kettle of fish so at the moment we're just selling it through the double
fire brigade like we've raised like um over 1300 euros so far and say for patty's day now we're
um going to be um the parade leads from fields for fire station and in conjunction with the double
fire brigade whiskey club i'd be reciting the poem for the visiting brigades so that's that's a nice
honor as well and then also then on the 20th of march next week um it's the 140th anniversary of
the first double firefighter that died a guy called john kite and there was a plaque going up on the
street where where he lost his life and like the chief would be there the lord mayor and one of
the pipers from the band and a guy called uh last fallen he's a he's a retired firefighter um
and he's also a fire brigade historian great guy great conversations with laz we uh we talk for
hours when we when we call each other i send them over poems he sends me bits of literature to
give my opinion on so um and i actually that's one of my favorite things about the poetry i'm
getting i'm kind of surrounding myself with these very creative people and it's amazing
this is this guy is like in my job like one guy got brian use he's like a champion illampiper who
i i always knew he was a musician but not to this extent you know there's a lot of talent that just
these guys are so modest they just keep it to themselves do their own thing and
you know and it's it's great to be surrounded by just these creative people because they they
pull you along you know it's um like same way like if you're a bad company can drag you down i mean
good people pull you up and that's what i that's why i'm liking the little journey so far getting
to do a few uh interviews this is the highlight so far i have to say so uh thanks for that um but
um yeah i'm loving it you know and i i write mainly about uh a few poems with the fire brigade
related stuff and but a lot about my my culture you know and my my backgrounds so um i love that
that type of thing i'm working on a poem at the moment there's a guy a guy called david keown
david keown and he's uh the ancient art of a stone lifting of all things which is just it's just
i'm just fascinated by this it's it was like a test of strength and it was it's it's big in
scotland and iceland and actually kind of japan america all over the world really but it died out
in ireland because when the famine hit us it seemed to coincide with that so while all the records of
it were lost but um it used to be a test of strength for example now i'm just kind of rehashing
what what what david has been preaching about but say if uh if you wanted to become a stonemason
there would be a rock say probably maybe 70 or 80 kg and you had to be able to physically lift
that rock up onto a wall and if you couldn't physically do that you didn't get your apprenticeship
so it was a kind of a rite of passage to get your apprenticeship it was also um there's like we've
rocks that are like 200 kg and only the strongest men from around could lift that you know and uh
yes it's a it's a great story so uh meeting guys like that and you know getting in touch with
fellows like that i think is it's just wonderful you know so uh it's enjoyable
i was just looking um there's a female athlete that i saw lift and this was two stones with kind
of like metal handles like driven into them chloe chloe brendman i think it is i don't know where
she's from she's from the uk and or ireland somewhere but um yeah i mean it's it's an amazing
and obviously the icelandics have their you know version of the stones as well odin odin stones
are something like that i think so yeah i think they're like 200 180 and 220 it's phenomenal
like i've been thinking about the grips right i think she's the only woman to have done it if
i'm not mistaken i watched the documentary on it but yeah david kogan actually if anyone's
this check this guy indiana stones is is uh is what he goes by on instagram like it's just a
fascinating story and uh people were asking me when am i going to write a poetry book
i'm like because i would have enough poems by now and i was saying to david i was like listen i
might regret saying this but there's an old irish writer called uh lima flaherty and he wrote
written a short story um called the stone and it's about this stone that's out in one of the
aran islands which is a little island off ireland after west coast of ireland
and this elderly man revisits this stone and he tries to lift it and he he actually he not only
does he fail he actually dies you know trying you know he literally tries his hard to but he's a
frail old man and he's just there lying there dead and the islanders come to collect his body and they
they all talk about how when he was a young man he lifted that stone up to his chest and he kissed
it three times and he was the only fellow on the island that could do it and he was a legend
and they lifted him up on his shoulders and he they carried him away and long story short
through research and local knowledge david discovered that this stone does exist and the
woman just went you know i know this stone because it was like a like a pink pink granite stone which
is unheard of for the area but due to you know glacial erosion and everything like that this
this would have shifted down onto the island and he found the stone and so the next thing he's
there like this stone hasn't been lifted in 100 years and he gets it he gets the wind underneath
it as as an anghéitha fí as it's said in irish and the rock is it's about him i think it's 171
kg maybe 177 i'm not sure so if you were saying when am i going to write my poetry book i said
well i want my poetry book to be blessed by the the old irish writing gods i said so yeah i'm not
writing my poetry book until i can lift that rock that's so so i've set myself and i sent this to
david and of course dave has the madness like me which i love he's just like i love it i love
this i love this you know so uh he says i'll go with you we lifted together no bother to you and
all this shit on it and uh so that's uh that's one of my little goals now like so if i don't lift it
if i don't lift the rock i'm not writing a book i guess uh but uh so no pressure but it's good
it's great that's what we're trying for to be honest with you you know absolutely especially
again you know like if you're not competing in sport anymore but you are still a firefighter
that's what i always found is you know pick us pick something pick something of a train for
i want to finish this interview if you are up for it with you reading the firefighter's call
so before we do that for people listening where are the best places to find you your poetry whether
it's on websites or whether it's social media yeah um so i just go by yeah gerard at divine poetry
and then you'll find me on instagram um gerard underscore divine underscore poetry
or my website is gerard divine poetry and dot com and that's it i'm on facebook as well so
um my website uh it's a work in progress you know but at the moment it kind of links you
towards my instagram but i'm hoping to have the firefighters call up on that very shortly
if anyone is looking to get it because it's it's starting to travel um actually the first copies
in the double fire brigade history or the double fire double fire brigade museum excuse me and then
the second copy is over number 10 station which overlooks ground zero there's a copy actually
the the lads from a tallifier station in dublin are going over to boston for saint patrick's day
and they've brought over a copy of it a nice presentation of it and then yeah it's kind of
starting starting to travel and i hope it continues to and so it basically the that's that's where
that's where you'll find me during divine poetry you stick that in and my my ugly head should pop
up or something something about me maybe and then you can hear me from there brilliant well i will
give you the microphone then so you can kind of close this conversation out with your poetry
yeah thanks it's called the firefighters call and it's about basically what calls us to the job
what's expected of us when we're in and what happens when we're gone
it's not for fame or fortune that most deem necessary no i invest to dawn a crest for work
less ordinary nor be it want of medals cap or polished shoes but a calling to help others
who have everything to lose to face hell's dancing angels and suppress them with each stride
to search resolve from deep within as loved ones weep outside to stand with pride and dignity
when comrades we remember be it pipes lament that fill sad air or silence in september
and may those names that have been etched in brass or granite stone haunt me in the darkness so i
never fight alone and if a colleague's head hangs low from tasting tragedy let me offer up my shoulder
for them to lean on me but when amazing grace is played alas for none but me lower the flag but raise
a glass for i'm not far from thee i'm gathered with the old flames looking down from god's
great height on call if aid be needed to join you in the fight
absolutely beautiful mate absolutely beautiful
thanks james yeah i mean when i listen to what i think of them i think of paul i've seen what i
think of our past that i've lost on the scoss you could be in the same station it depends what crew
you talk to they're going to think of someone else you know it's um it's an unfortunate that
our colleagues become friends and often our best pals and we think of these men and women you know
it's the unfortunate unfortunate thing about having friends is that you you lose them along
the way sometimes and especially those that have gone before their time so um just sort of pay a
bit of respect to them that's all well i think it's a beautiful way to pay to respect and this is the
origin story of this podcast too is you know we all going to go one day but it's when they go before
they should have that it really really stings yeah well i just want to thank you so much it's been
such a an interesting conversation everything from walking through spain in a business suit to
you know some of the fire stories that you brought and then obviously your poetry
so i just want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the behind
the shield podcast today thanks very much james and as i said i love the i love the podcast and
i wish you all the success which i know i know you will have because you're very dedicated to it and
it's uh i'm really honored to be uh to be asked to talk here on behalf of myself and maybe represent
my uh the double fire we get over here in this little corner of the world so i'm really happy
saint patrick's day