Irish Thalidomide Association ‘devastated' by death of Jacqui Browne
Jacqui Browne, a disability activist and
thalidomide
survivor, has died at the age of 63.
Ms Browne, who was from Co Kerry, died peacefully at her home on Monday 'surrounded by her loving family' and a palliative care team.
Ms Browne, who was born in November 1961, is predeceased by her parents Donal and Jean, and her brother-in-law Jean Paul Baro. She is survived by her siblings, nieces and nephews, and wider family.
In her
death notice
, her family said they are 'heartbroken' by her passing.
READ MORE
Ms Browne will be reposing at the Gleasure Funeral Home in Tralee on Thursday from 6pm to 8pm. Her funeral Mass will take place at midday on Friday at St John's Church in Tralee.
A spokeswoman for the Irish Thalidomide Association (ITA) said its members are 'devastated' by her death and 'grieving the loss of a great friend'.
[
'Physically there is so much I can't do': Thalidomide survivor Jacqui Browne believes the State is simply waiting for her to die
]
Thalidomide was introduced in the mid-1950s to counter morning sickness but was withdrawn from most markets in 1961 after widespread evidence of it leading to birth defects. However, it was retained on the shelves in Ireland until 1964.
The medication led to deformities and the deaths of thousands of babies across the world. Many children of women who took the drug in pregnancy were born without limbs, or shortened limbs, with hearing and vision impairments and injuries to internal organs.
Members of the ITA have been campaigning for decades for a State apology for the immense toll thalidomide has had on their lives.
Ms Browne, who worked as a disability equality consultant for more than 35 years, underwent several operations throughout her life due to the condition.
In an
interview with The Irish Times last year
, she said that receiving a State apology would give her 'closure' and 'take this big cloud off from over my head'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
13 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Terry Prone: Memory of late Thalidomide victim Jacqui Browne should be honoured
Just under a year ago, Jacqui Browne stated her grim certainty. That certainty was that the Government was simply waiting for Irish Thalidomide survivors to die. This week she died, her death not probative of such an intent, but a reproach to the system, nonetheless. She held that certainty even though, this time last year, the Government was indicating that it would take a new approach to solving the problems caused by doctors prescribing a morning sickness drug to pregnant women, those doctors unaware that it would cause grievous damage to their unborn babies. Long after that drug had been removed from sale in other countries, it lurked on the shelves of pharmacies here, ready to maim and disfigure. Jacqui Browne, front, with other members of the Irish Thalidomide Association arriving at Government Buildings in 2022 for one of many meetings where they sought long-overdue justice for survivors of the Thalidomide drug. File picture: Sam Boal/Rolling News Kerry woman Jacqui Browne was one of the babies born disastrously damaged by Thalidomide. Her hands and forearms were shortened. Her hearing less than normal. Her speech impaired. When most toddlers are learning to play and explore, Jacqui was being poked and tested, torn from her family for special education in a school for deaf children in Dublin. The first of 35 major surgical operations was done to the little girl when she was a tiny five-year-old. Big surgical interventions continued throughout her life. And yet, she forged a career for herself, internationally, as a disability equality consultant. Intrepid yachtswoman She had a life; becoming a yachtswoman who survived a shipwreck near Java. The Cork Clipper — with Jacqui Browne among the crew — leading the fleet out of port at the start of Race 3 from Rio to Cape Town in the 2010 Clipper Round the World Race. File picture: Clipper Ventures/PA One of a group competing in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race 15 years ago, when their boat went aground, she and the rest of the crew managed to get to a place where they could survive until rescue boats came. Despite the never-ending problems caused to her life by Thalidomide and the corrective surgeries that never seemed to be complete, she was a self-confessed optimist. 'I'm always happy,' she confirmed. 'I have wonderful friends and great family support. But I do find physically there is so much I can't do.' Along with the other 40 survivors (together with some people who the Thalidomide Association believe to justify adding to that number), she went public in recent years to ask the powers that be to apologise to the mothers who have blamed themselves all their lives for the hurt to their children caused by the 'miracle' drug. What emerged last year aggravated, rather than assuaged, the anger of the survivors. It was an expression of sympathy rather than a straight-up apology. In its aftermath, another mother died. The Thalidomide survivors, Jacqui front and centre among them, have for years asked the State to revisit the issue, pointing out that, just as polio victims suffer post-polio syndrome decades after they thought they were done with the sequelae of the infection, victims of Thalidomide enter new levels of suffering as they enter old age — for different reasons. 'When you have impairments due to the thalidomide drug, you're all the time compensating,' Jacqui pointed out. You're doing things maybe differently to how somebody else might do them, but you're actually overusing one side of your body. So that too becomes inflamed and sore and painful because you can't use the other side. Paying tribute to Jacqui, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission chief Liam Herrick talked of mourning the loss of a 'colleague, advisor, and friend'. Her Thalidomide Association colleagues — 39 of them now left to continue the fight they shouldn't still be fighting — talk of losing a warrior. Her family will experience the loss differently: They grieve a family member, a beloved sister. The Taoiseach and Tánaiste — each of whom has at various times expressed understanding of the issue and a wish to solve the remaining problems — might honour the memory of Jacqui Browne by kicking life into an administrative process that's almost one sadly unproductive year in business this month.
Irish Times
18 hours ago
- Irish Times
Is it too late to save my blighted potato plants?
My potato plants are showing signs of blight, with some of the leaves starting to discolour and drop off. Is it too late to save them? I don't really want to spray them unless it's necessary. Michael D, Galway Unfortunately, early summer's rainy, humid weather created exactly the sort of conditions suitable for the spread of potato blight, the famously destructive fungal disease that can badly damage and even destroy potato plants as well as the tubers developing underground. It can also strike tomato plants, with similarly depressing consequences. Controlling it is challenging, especially if you're growing your plants in an area with other potato plants growing nearby – for example, on an allotment site – where the risk of the disease leapfrogging from one crop to another is high. READ MORE The conventional approach is to spray plants with a protective fungicide several times during the growing season to prevent infection. Some of these conventional fungicides are non-systemic, acting only as a protective layer, while others are systemic, being absorbed deep into the tissue of the plant. Neither is effective as a treatment for already infected plants, nor are they considered organically acceptable. [ How to get the best out of your potatoes Opens in new window ] Instead, organic gardeners favour a combination of planet-friendly methods that include choosing potato varieties with proven high blight resistance; growing 'early varieties' that are ready to harvest much more quickly and are thus less vulnerable to the disease than slower-to-mature main crop varieties; practising good cultural controls such as crop rotation and generous spacing between individual plants; removing old tubers that have overwintered in the ground as well as 'volunteer' plants in spring; and using natural biostimulants such as Herfomyc, which boost the plants' ability to resist infection. You can also slow the spread of the disease in infected plants by handpicking and carefully binning individual infected leaves. But once it has spread to roughly a quarter of the crop, you should cut back all the plants to just above the ground and then carefully bin burn/ dispose of all the afflicted top growth. This will slow down the spread of blight to the tubers themselves, which can be left in the ground for up to several weeks to ripen before being harvested. [ Should you chit seed potatoes before planting them? Opens in new window ] Some gardeners like to combine this method with a layer of plastic sheeting or horticultural fleece spread over the bare soil after the stems have been cut back. The thinking here is that this also helps to prevent the fungal spores from infecting the tubers themselves.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Eight facial reconstruction surgeries later, my cancer and most of my face were gone. Until the cancer came back
When I was younger, I used to hear the phrase, 'your health is your wealth!' In truth, in my youth I didn't fully appreciate or understand it. But as one enters life's departure lounge, reflection takes its own hold. My first encounter with the word ' cancer ' came in the late 1990s. I had spent two months in the Bon Secours Hospital in Glasnevin when my illness was first discovered. It was a large tumour on my face making its way steadily towards my brain. Eight facial reconstruction surgeries later and it was gone, along with much of my face – only to return again 10 years later. There is something truly terrifying about looking at yourself in a mirror and not recognising who is on the other end, an Elephant Man moment that lingered, with only the passage of time a real healer. There is a deep sense of loss, a finality, yet a sense too of the beginning of something brand new. Having had more than 50 growths removed, part of an illness called Gorlin syndrome, and then to find out you have severe Crohn's disease, certainly has an impact on the mind. READ MORE For me there is almost a beauty in facing these obstacles. Time and time again, I have had to push myself through the pain barrier to realise there is a freedom that awaits on the other side. Before I helped to form the band Stockton's Wing in 1977, it was my intention to join the priesthood. I had applied to enter the seminary in Kiltegan. My mother thought it was not a good idea, so I took her advice. The name Stockton's Wing is something I get asked about a lot. The band had entered a music competition called Céili '78, as part of Limerick Civic Week. It was a Sunday night and we had to decide on a name by first post on Monday. Sitting in Mike and Kieran Hanrahan's house in Ennis, their brother Gerard had just bought Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run album. He was reading the lyrics to the song Backstreets with its line 'Slow dancin' in the dark on the beach at Stockton's Wing, where desperate lovers park to meet the last of the Duke Street Kings.' And that is where we first came across the name Stockton's Wing. It's a little place in New Jersey. There were 35 bands in the traditional music category at Céili '78 and 35 in the rock section. Both events took place simultaneously, ours at the Glentworth Hotel; the rock section at the Savoy Cinema. Stockton's Wing won out among the traddies, while U2 won the rock event. That is about all we ever had in common. But we had our own modicum of success too. We went on to tour the world and share the same stage as Prince, Michael Jackson, Jackson Brown, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis jnr in the US. Closer to home, we performed with Planxty, Moving Hearts, De Danann and many more. This was commonplace too with those groups throughout Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. After more than 30 years with the band, I decided to concentrate on my own music, and spent many happy years accompanying singers Seán Keane and Finbar Furey. More recently, I feel very blessed and privileged that my music has been recorded by groups such as Lúnasa, Capercaillie, Four Men and a Dog, Cherish the Ladies, Natalie MacMaster, the Nova Scotia Symphony Orchestra, Mike McGoldrick, the Kilfenora Ceili Band, Noel Hill, Scythian and many, many others besides. From those early days, fast-forward 35 years to when my illness began. As a young man, I felt very connected to Our Lady, both parents having a devotion to Lourdes. So, I sought the intercession of our Blessed Mother. I went to visit a grotto on one of my first days in recovery. Like Henry David Thoreau, I sat and listened to my thoughts and there was a song in them. I sat for what seemed like minutes, but in fact I was there for hours. Overwhelmed with a feeling of joy and elation, I felt the true meaning of my life had yet to reveal itself to me. Within weeks of what for me was a form of spiritual newness, I began writing words and music at a prolific rate. The language was universal and the music was of the heart, almost bypassing the mind. Reach out for the love that surrounds you, see it in yourself, see it in others, be humble, share in it, for love is truly all there is. The results have found their way into a book, featuring these various compositions and musings. Titled Duchas, Dóchas sa Dorchadas. From Heritage, Hope in the Darkness, it will be published later this year. Maurice Lennon won the senior All-Ireland fiddle title in 1977 at the age of 17. Founder member of Stockton's Wing he performed with them worldwide and, in 2023, was awarded the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Award for composition. Based between France and Ireland, he tours with his own trio, which includes Ciara Brennan and Chris Dawson
