Key Highlights
- Alex Honnold’s free solo ascent of Taipei 101 was watched by the author on Netflix.
- The author reflects on his own fear of heights and compares it to Alex Honnold’s bravery.
- The government’s handling of weather warnings is criticized, with a focus on Met Éireann being blamed for insufficient communication.
- Political figures are accused of attempting to distract from their failures by blaming others for flooding incidents.
A Solo Ascent and a Sofa
When I sat down to watch Skyscraper Live on Netflix, little did I know it would be an eye-opener in more ways than one. The documentary followed Alex Honnold’s breathtaking free solo climb of Taipei 101, the world’s 11th tallest building at 508 metres. My wife will tell you that watching this wasn’t just a thrilling experience; it was a personal milestone.
I didn’t look away once—maybe twice or seventeen times. And only screamed into my couch cushion once. You might think this is new, but Alex Honnold’s bravery has been on display for years.
The Fear of Heights
My own fear of heights isn’t a secret. The time we took the cliff walk over on Three Castle Head was an experience I’ll never forget. Beautiful views, sheer drops—it wasn’t just the supernatural that freaked me out; it was my entire nervous system staging a mutiny when I got anywhere within a hundred yards of the cliff edge.
Then there was the Empire State Building incident.
We got to the top, and as soon as I looked out at Manhattan with planes flying below us, I spent the rest of our visit hanging on to the central structure like a barnacle clung to the Fastnet. The edge was a long way away. If Clonakilty were the Empire State Building observation deck, I would have been clinging to the walls inside SuperValu, terrified I might somehow fall off the edge of town by the post office.
So when Alex Honnold climbed 508 metres of glass and steel with no rope, harness, or safety equipment beyond what appeared to be a pair of rubber dollies and a small bag of chalk, it struck me that sometimes heroes don’t wear capes. Sometimes they just get up at 3 AM to tackle the world’s tallest buildings.
Muddying the Waters
The weather warnings in Ireland have become a daily affair for many of us. But when Minister James Browne criticized Met Éireann for their communication before Storm Chandra battered Wexford, saying they’ll be hauled before an Oireachtas committee to explain why they’re ‘guarding information,’ I nearly choked on my Coco Pops.
Met Éireann has been screaming warnings at us like worried parents watching a child climb up a small skyscraper. Now, they’re being blamed for not screaming loud enough.
What exactly does the Minister want? A forecaster to arrive at your door personally and roar ‘IT’S GOING TO LASH, STAY INSIDE’?
They’ve been sending alerts to every phone in the country, they’ve been all over RTÉ, they’ve been issuing colour-coded warnings we’ve all become experts at ignoring. Red means bad.
Orange means bad but we’ll probably still go to the pub. Purple means say goodbye to your loved ones and get your affairs in order.
It’s like getting a text warning that your roof is about to collapse when you’ve been asking the landlord to fix it for three years. Jim Daly warned us I caught Brendan O’Connor’s show at the weekend where they had a panel discussing how mediocrity is the survival strategy in Irish politics.
Don’t stick your head above the parapet, don’t rock the boat, wait until everyone else has said it first and then agree loudly.
They mentioned Jim Daly, the former Cork South West TD, who years ago was warning about the dangers of the internet for kids, social media addiction, the whole lot.
He even proposed plans to ban children under the age of 14 from owning smartphones and having unrestricted access to the Internet. He was treated like he was proposing we ban electricity, at the time. I probably had that thought myself. Now, everyone’s suddenly an expert on phone-free schools and teen mental health crises, and we’re all nodding along pretending we knew it all along.
It might have come a little late for Mr Daly, but I hope he’s feeling just a small bit smug this week.
