EDITOR -  As someone who navigates the ups and downs of life with inflammatory bowel disease or IBD, I can tell you that it is not something that you can do on your own.

It impacts home life, work life, social life, and every other aspect of daily life.

Perhaps more commonly known as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, there are approximately 50,000 people like me living with the condition across Ireland.

The impact of IBD radiates outward, easily touching ten or more people through shared daily life—parents, siblings, partners, friends, and colleagues.

That’s why I’m hoping that this World IBD Day on May 19 will be the start of something very special.

It Takes a Village is a new campaign being initiated by Crohn’s and Colitis Ireland that aims to show how communities all over Ireland can show their support for people with IBD.

We have published a new hands-on guide with information on IBD, busting myths, and offering lots of tips and advice on how to be a great ally.

We will have a free webinar on the day which promises to be essential viewing for all those who would like to be there for the person with IBD in their lives.

We are also urging businesses to pledge their support for our community and adopt the Crohn’s and Colitis Ireland “No Wait” card, in allowing discreet no-questions-asked bathroom access.

To access the new guide, register for the free webinar, and for businesses to pledge their backing, visit www.crohnscolitis.ie/ItTakesAVillage

Whether it’s offering a shoulder to lean on, help with the shopping, or being flexible with working arrangements, each of us taking just one practical step would make the world of difference to people with IBD.

Victoria Spillane

Chief Operating Officer

Crohn’s and Colitis Ireland

Dublin 7

Victoria Spillane: show your support for people living with IBD.

Dissidents who planted bomb have no regard

EDITOR - The dissidents who hijacked a delivery van to plant a bomb at a PSNI station do not represent  anyone but themselves. They have no regard for human life and are condemned by all sections of the community North and South of the border.

We all thought we had moved on from that carry on which is the cause of grief in Belfast and the wider community who deserve to live in peace and safety in their own homes.

They have no regard for the peace process. We can only hope for better days to come and that young people will not get involved in violence.

Noel Harrington.

Chairman of Kinsale Sinn Féin

There is a place for fox hunting in rural Ireland

EDITOR - Further to Mr Fitzgerald’s recent letter to The Southern Star, I disagree with his views on fox hunting. It has been a rural past time for years and was always regarded as a good healthy day out with friends and fellow lovers of rural Ireland.    

It was usually a short spell in the midst of winter and to my mind was always overseen by very responsible and fair minded people. It’s a great pity many farmers nowadays object to the hunts entering their lands and leaving the hunts people very confined and limited.

Is it any wonder that at night time in towns and villages there is a huge amount of wild foxes roaming freely which have often attacked hens and hen houses.

It’s the other side of the equation which is seldom mentioned nowadays. It was always a spectacular sight to see a big hunt set off with well-attired riders on fine horses, beagles running ahead with buglers following. Long may it last.

Jeremiah McCarthy, 

Clonakilty.

Wind energy schemes are David v Goliath

EDITOR - Thank you for your interest in highlighting the almost existential threat to the beautiful scenery at the Bantry end of the Bay.

Currently there are planning applications and or appeals for 28 giant wind turbines on the hills around the three valleys that form the coast-ward framing of this magnificent land form.  What I would like to focus on is however not just the environmental vandalism, but the almost Trumpian ‘collateral damage’ that results from the fractioning of  the receiving community. There are so many conflicting views about the potential outcomes of the process of planning applications like this and the necessity or undesirability of the project and the sheer scale of the turbines that overall the confusion, coupled with the complexity of making one’s voice heard is extremely damaging to the sense of community.

The environmental impact assessments that accompany these planning applications run to thousands of pages and are unintelligible and overwhelming to just about everyone.

To have such little time to construct a reasoned response is a challenge to anyone’s mental health, causing great anxiety to the point of physical symptoms in some.

There is a ‘bonanza’ in wind energy expansion at the moment and it has become a ‘David versus Goliath’ contest between Big Business and local interests. One only has to remember Gulf Oil and Whiddy to realise what generally happens to all the promised benefits.

They go elsewhere!

Name and address with editor