Taoiseach 'deeply moved' by story of Hiroshima survivor in Japan
The first indication of the enormity of what had just happened, she told Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Friday, was that the sky was suddenly and dramatically illuminated, in what she described as a blinding "bluish-white" light.
The second indication was the rising black/grey nuclear cloud, which Ms Yahata said was "as if the heavens had become a huge flower".
Then the force of the blast raced through her district, more than two kilometres from the point of detonation, and knocked her to the ground, causing her to lose consciousness.
The atomic bomb dropped by the B-29 warplane, Enola Gay, triggered a powerful shockwave that levelled almost every structure within a radius of 1.5km.
The intense heat it generated in-turn set off a firestorm that engulfed district after district.
It is estimated that 70,000 people were obliterated immediately by the blast, with another 70,000 dying from 'radiation sickness' over the following months.
More than half of the city's population was wiped out.
Hiroshima had become the first city in the world to be targeted by a nuclear weapon and, to my amazement, Ms Yahata was steadily relating her incredible eye-witness testimony nearly eight decades later.
I had spotted an unassuming, bespectacled woman, wearing a white cardigan and a pearl necklace over her dark dress, slipping into the office of Hiroshima Mayor, Kazumi Matsui, while Mr Martin was speaking with Japanese journalists.
I'm not sure whether it was her purposeful stride that caught my attention, or the fact that she then carefully laid out a map of Hiroshima on a table.
Either way, something made me enquire about this quiet and stylish woman at the back of the room.
An official whispered to me: "She's one of the hibakusha" - a collective term which translates as "bomb-affected-people".
Ms Yahata was introduced to the Taoiseach, and she first pointed out on her map where the epicentre, or more correctly hypocenter, of the blast was located, and how that related to her suburb.
She had a strong voice and was speaking in English - a language she had mastered at the age of 83, so that she could dispense with translators and reach a wider audience directly.
This small detail gave me a big insight into the petite, strong-willed woman sitting in front of us.
Ms Yahata said she regained consciousness quickly after the atomic blast on 6 August 1945, and heard her mother's voice calling out for her.
Like her city, Ms Yahata's childhood had just been blown to smithereens by the blast, and she'd now been catapulted into a nightmarish nuclear world.
She told us that when she saw her mother: "I noticed that there were fragments of glass sticking out of her back, and her white dress was now stained bloody red."
She witnessed her father carrying her great-grandmother on his back as he escaped their house.
"There was so much smoke in there, that I could barely see the inside of the house. It had been turned upside down, and the shattered glass from the sliding doors was everywhere," she said.
Ms Yahata remembered her mother praying as they left their ruined family home: "It was silent outside, and virtually all of the houses surrounding ours were destroyed."
There was also fear, if not terror.
"We thought that there was sure to be a second and, perhaps, a third bombing."
Given that threat, and the intense destruction all around them, Ms Yahata's family decided to flee to the mountains where they had friends.
But hunger stalked the land there, as the structures of society as they'd known it, were gone.
Her direct testimony of eking out a life in a nuclear winter had a powerful impact on everyone in the room, including the Taoiseach.
Mr Martin recounted afterwards how he'd been horrified as Ms Yahata described the hellish scenes she'd witnessed, including encountering people suffering from radiation burns with "skin peeling-off their arms".
The Taoiseach said he had been deeply moved when Ms Yahata spoke of how her family, and so many others, faced starvation in those dark months after the bombing.
He said she told him how, even to this day, she attaches huge significance to a bowl of rice - as she's never forgotten being given one by a stranger when she was starving as a child.
Mr Martin said the purpose of his visit to Hiroshima had been to express sympathy to the victims, such as Ms Yahata, but also to reaffirm Ireland's strong and long-standing commitment to disarmament and denuclearisation.
Against the backdrop of the bombing of Iran by Israel and the US, with the stated aim of destroying its capacity to make nuclear weapons, Mr Martin described the world today as "a very dangerous place."
"If Iran… was ever to secure a nuclear weapon, then the prospect of proliferation for the nuclear weapons within the Middle East, for example, would grow very significantly," he contended.
The Taoiseach suggested that there was a paradox about humanity, given its ability to exhibit both "incredible ingenuity" and "profound stupidity" as evidenced by its ever increasing capacity to develop weapons which could destroy the planet.
"I was at the AI [Artificial Intelligence] summit in Paris… one person spoke about the application of AI to warfare, which would really be on a different level altogether, in terms of the destruction that could be wreaked on humankind."
While in Hiroshima, the Taoiseach spent most of his time in the company of the city's Mayor, Kazumi Matsui.
In blistering midday sunshine, they laid a wreath and stood together at the cenotaph for the victims, a sculptured arc designed to provide shelter for the souls of those killed by the bomb.
In the near distance, we could see the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, commonly called the A-Bomb Dome.
This iconic building was left ruined by the nuclear strike but somehow is still standing - quite a feat given it was just 160m from the hypocentre of the explosion.
The Taoiseach said he learned a lot from Mayor Matsui - not just about what happened in August 1945, but also how the population recovered from the collective trauma.
"I think the mayor made a very good point when he said to me… that you have to break the cycle of hate.
"And that's the key issue, that the people of Japan had a huge hate visited upon them. You must learn to stop hating, and if you can do that, then you can build peace," he said.
But undoubtedly the most memorable person of all those introduced to the Taoiseach in Hiroshima was Teruko Yahata.
"The thought that came through, [while] speaking to her, was the resilience of humankind. It's quite extraordinary that she survived," she said.
The Taoiseach is among many impressed by Teruko Yahata.
In 2013 she was appointed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Ambassador for Denuclearisation - an official recognition of her tireless campaign work.
Yet, while she has spoken to any and every nationality about her incredible story, it turns out there was a special reason why Ms Yahata really wanted to talk to Ireland's Taoiseach.
Mr Martin told us after their meeting: "As it transpires, her daughter married an Irishman living in the United Kingdom, and she has a grandson, Conor. She said [he was] named after a great Irish King… so the world is indeed a small place."
It clearly is a small place, just as it is a vulnerable place, as Ms Yahata has testified for 80 years.
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RTÉ News
2 days ago
- RTÉ News
Taoiseach 'deeply moved' by story of Hiroshima survivor in Japan
When the US warplane dropped a 4,400kg atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and 43 seconds later it detonated 600 metres above the city, eight-year-old Teruko Yahata was playing in her garden on what was a sunny August morning in 1945. The first indication of the enormity of what had just happened, she told Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Friday, was that the sky was suddenly and dramatically illuminated, in what she described as a blinding "bluish-white" light. The second indication was the rising black/grey nuclear cloud, which Ms Yahata said was "as if the heavens had become a huge flower". Then the force of the blast raced through her district, more than two kilometres from the point of detonation, and knocked her to the ground, causing her to lose consciousness. The atomic bomb dropped by the B-29 warplane, Enola Gay, triggered a powerful shockwave that levelled almost every structure within a radius of 1.5km. The intense heat it generated in-turn set off a firestorm that engulfed district after district. It is estimated that 70,000 people were obliterated immediately by the blast, with another 70,000 dying from 'radiation sickness' over the following months. More than half of the city's population was wiped out. Hiroshima had become the first city in the world to be targeted by a nuclear weapon and, to my amazement, Ms Yahata was steadily relating her incredible eye-witness testimony nearly eight decades later. I had spotted an unassuming, bespectacled woman, wearing a white cardigan and a pearl necklace over her dark dress, slipping into the office of Hiroshima Mayor, Kazumi Matsui, while Mr Martin was speaking with Japanese journalists. I'm not sure whether it was her purposeful stride that caught my attention, or the fact that she then carefully laid out a map of Hiroshima on a table. Either way, something made me enquire about this quiet and stylish woman at the back of the room. An official whispered to me: "She's one of the hibakusha" - a collective term which translates as "bomb-affected-people". Ms Yahata was introduced to the Taoiseach, and she first pointed out on her map where the epicentre, or more correctly hypocenter, of the blast was located, and how that related to her suburb. She had a strong voice and was speaking in English - a language she had mastered at the age of 83, so that she could dispense with translators and reach a wider audience directly. This small detail gave me a big insight into the petite, strong-willed woman sitting in front of us. Ms Yahata said she regained consciousness quickly after the atomic blast on 6 August 1945, and heard her mother's voice calling out for her. Like her city, Ms Yahata's childhood had just been blown to smithereens by the blast, and she'd now been catapulted into a nightmarish nuclear world. She told us that when she saw her mother: "I noticed that there were fragments of glass sticking out of her back, and her white dress was now stained bloody red." She witnessed her father carrying her great-grandmother on his back as he escaped their house. "There was so much smoke in there, that I could barely see the inside of the house. It had been turned upside down, and the shattered glass from the sliding doors was everywhere," she said. Ms Yahata remembered her mother praying as they left their ruined family home: "It was silent outside, and virtually all of the houses surrounding ours were destroyed." There was also fear, if not terror. "We thought that there was sure to be a second and, perhaps, a third bombing." Given that threat, and the intense destruction all around them, Ms Yahata's family decided to flee to the mountains where they had friends. But hunger stalked the land there, as the structures of society as they'd known it, were gone. Her direct testimony of eking out a life in a nuclear winter had a powerful impact on everyone in the room, including the Taoiseach. Mr Martin recounted afterwards how he'd been horrified as Ms Yahata described the hellish scenes she'd witnessed, including encountering people suffering from radiation burns with "skin peeling-off their arms". The Taoiseach said he had been deeply moved when Ms Yahata spoke of how her family, and so many others, faced starvation in those dark months after the bombing. He said she told him how, even to this day, she attaches huge significance to a bowl of rice - as she's never forgotten being given one by a stranger when she was starving as a child. Mr Martin said the purpose of his visit to Hiroshima had been to express sympathy to the victims, such as Ms Yahata, but also to reaffirm Ireland's strong and long-standing commitment to disarmament and denuclearisation. Against the backdrop of the bombing of Iran by Israel and the US, with the stated aim of destroying its capacity to make nuclear weapons, Mr Martin described the world today as "a very dangerous place." "If Iran… was ever to secure a nuclear weapon, then the prospect of proliferation for the nuclear weapons within the Middle East, for example, would grow very significantly," he contended. The Taoiseach suggested that there was a paradox about humanity, given its ability to exhibit both "incredible ingenuity" and "profound stupidity" as evidenced by its ever increasing capacity to develop weapons which could destroy the planet. "I was at the AI [Artificial Intelligence] summit in Paris… one person spoke about the application of AI to warfare, which would really be on a different level altogether, in terms of the destruction that could be wreaked on humankind." While in Hiroshima, the Taoiseach spent most of his time in the company of the city's Mayor, Kazumi Matsui. In blistering midday sunshine, they laid a wreath and stood together at the cenotaph for the victims, a sculptured arc designed to provide shelter for the souls of those killed by the bomb. In the near distance, we could see the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, commonly called the A-Bomb Dome. This iconic building was left ruined by the nuclear strike but somehow is still standing - quite a feat given it was just 160m from the hypocentre of the explosion. The Taoiseach said he learned a lot from Mayor Matsui - not just about what happened in August 1945, but also how the population recovered from the collective trauma. "I think the mayor made a very good point when he said to me… that you have to break the cycle of hate. "And that's the key issue, that the people of Japan had a huge hate visited upon them. You must learn to stop hating, and if you can do that, then you can build peace," he said. But undoubtedly the most memorable person of all those introduced to the Taoiseach in Hiroshima was Teruko Yahata. "The thought that came through, [while] speaking to her, was the resilience of humankind. It's quite extraordinary that she survived," she said. The Taoiseach is among many impressed by Teruko Yahata. In 2013 she was appointed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Ambassador for Denuclearisation - an official recognition of her tireless campaign work. Yet, while she has spoken to any and every nationality about her incredible story, it turns out there was a special reason why Ms Yahata really wanted to talk to Ireland's Taoiseach. Mr Martin told us after their meeting: "As it transpires, her daughter married an Irishman living in the United Kingdom, and she has a grandson, Conor. She said [he was] named after a great Irish King… so the world is indeed a small place." It clearly is a small place, just as it is a vulnerable place, as Ms Yahata has testified for 80 years.
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Peter Dowdall: Garden design is more about editing than creating, so observe what it needs
All too often, we get completely engrossed in colour. And it's understandable. Who doesn't love the riot of blooms in May, June and July, when the garden is bursting with life and everything feels fresh and full of promise? But in our enthusiasm for flower colour, it's easy to lose sight of something more fundamental, the actual design of the garden. Colour is fleeting. It comes and goes with the seasons, often vanishing overnight in the face of wind or rain. What remains, though, are the bones of the garden, its structure, its textures and its more subtle touches. One of the lessons I've learned over the years is the importance of observing before acting. There's a reason why Japanese gardens are so popular; there's a calm, reflective tone that runs through the best Japanese garden design, and it begins not with a spade or a plant list, but with time spent simply looking. Colour is fleeting. It comes and goes with the seasons. Watching how the light moves across the garden throughout the day, noticing how the wind flows through it, listening to the way it sounds, these are all part of the design process. It's an approach that will pay you many dividends in the long run. Let's not forget what gardens are all about, relaxing and just 'being' so go out into the garden, don't pull a weed or clip a plant, just sit for a while, really take it in. What draws your eye? Where do you feel comfortable? Are there parts of the garden that feel awkward or underused? When you stop thinking in terms of colours and start thinking in terms of space and experience, you begin to see the garden differently. You see the relationships between shapes and heights, between open areas and more enclosed ones. You start to understand how structure supports everything else. Colour, as glorious as it is, is temporary. A garden will never be as colourful in December and January as it is in high summer, but that doesn't mean it can't still be interesting. A good garden should hold your attention all year round, even in its quietest moments, and it's in winter, when the flowers have all but disappeared, that the importance of texture, structure, and positioning comes into its own. Look at how a gnarled tree trunk catches the low winter light, or how a clump of ornamental grass sways in the wind or stands solid, frozen by frost. Notice the curve of a path, the shape of a shrub, or the contrast between a smooth stone and a bed of moss. These are the things that stay with us through the seasons, quietly doing their work in the background while the more show-off elements take their turn in the spotlight at different times Incorporating interest into a garden doesn't always mean adding more. Sometimes it means removing what's unnecessary so that what remains has space to breathe. Empty areas are sometimes as important as the planted ones. They allow the eye to rest and give a sense of calm. Again, this is something that Japanese gardens do so well. Their use of empty space, their appreciation of ageing and imperfection, and their commitment to balance and subtlety all come from a place of deep observation and respect for the natural world. If you're thinking about making changes to your garden, or even just wondering why certain parts feel off or uninspiring, try taking a different approach. Instead of planning your next trip to the garden centre with flower colour in mind, go out into the garden with a cup of tea and a notebook. Walk around. Sit in different spots. Look at the garden from the inside of the house as well as from the garden path. Ask yourself what works and what doesn't, not in terms of colour, but in terms of flow, style and feeling. This act of slowing down and observing is something I've had to remind myself of over and over again. I love plants, and I love the bold impact of seasonal flowers, but I also know that without structure, those moments are too brief to carry the garden alone. When you start thinking in terms of structure, form, texture, and then colour on top, everything begins to settle into place. In many ways, designing a garden is more about editing than creating. The elements are already there: the light, the soil, the wind, the existing plants. Our job is to notice them, understand them, and work with them gently and as the Japanese approach teaches us, doing less, but doing it thoughtfully, often leads to more. So, before you plant another tray of petunias or dash to the shop for something in full bloom, take a moment. What is your garden telling you? What does it need? What does it already have that you haven't quite noticed yet? Got a gardening question for Peter Dowdall? Email gardenquestions@
The Irish Sun
4 days ago
- The Irish Sun
Aldi's £1.25 kitchen staple will eliminate English ivy from your garden & stop it creeping over neighbour's walls
AN expert has revealed a £1.50 hack to stop English ivy from overtaking your garden. English ivy is a charming-looking plant, which can make your outdoor space look like a serene haven. 2 Ivy can end up taking over your garden Credit: Getty 2 Bin bags can be use to dehydrate ivy Credit: Aldi However, it grows rapidly, and can end up overtaking your garden, and creeping over your neighbour's wall. Ivy can grow up to a whopping 30m tall, and produces aerial shoots that allow it to easily cling to walls, trees and fences. Tara Besore, who has a gardening blog called Hammer & Headband revealed how she successfully managed to prevent ivy from taking over her garden. She said: "Stopping it [ivy] seemed impossible, but eventually I got rid of every last ivy root and vine in my yard. Read more garden stories "Here's what you need to know to remove English ivy for good." The gardening whizz tried cutting and pulling up the ivy and spraying herbicides on it, but found that neither of these methods worked properly. However, she revealed that solarisation worked a treat on even the densest patches of ivy. "It doesn't strain your back, and it doesn't require chemicals", she said. Most read in Fabulous "All it takes is patience." To try out this hack, she explained that all you need is a black plastic sheet, such as a bin bag. Expert Gardening Hacks for a Pet-Friendly Summer Garden "After spending a summer getting nowhere with brute force, I turned to the solarisation method," Tara said. "This involves letting the sun scorch the ivy under plastic." Wrap your ivy in bin bags, and then secure it firmly with bricks or stakes. Tara explained that this method deprives the plants of water. Top gardening trends of 2025 Gardening experts at Matrix planting It seems that a top planting trend for this year is going to be Matrix Planting. In essence, planting in groups or blocks to give an effect of being wild whilst actually being carefully managed. Selection of the plants is essential, to give year-round interest either with flowers, seed heads or frosted/snowy spent flower heads. Some recommend using plants that seed around, but this could make managing your matrix planting harder to keep under control. Chrysanthemum comeback I hope that the humble Chrysanthemum makes as much of a comeback this year as Dahlias have over recent years, because the simple single flowered types, such as 'Innocence' and 'Cottage Apricot' would be spectacular within a matrix scheme. The hardy varieties are so easy to grow in a sunny spot and give such a valuable burst of late summer and autumn colour that would lift any dull- looking border. Blended borders For some time now we have been promoting the growing of veg within ornamental borders and I think this could really take off this year. The choice of ornamental-looking varieties available in seed catalogues is phenomenal and, if managed correctly, visitors to your garden will not even realise that you have veg growing! Must-have tool My secret is out. I discovered the Hori Hori a couple of years ago and now it seems so is everyone else. It is such a well-made, adaptable tool that can be used as a trowel or weeding tool in the garden that and everyone I speak to who have used it absolutely would not now be without it. Enough said! "It cooks in the heat, permanently killing the ivy, the roots, and even the seeds so it can't grow back", she said. Once the ivy has turned brown and brittle, you can easily pull it up out of the ground and clear it away. Bin bags are super cheap, and you likely have them in your kitchen cupboard. If not, you can pick them up from Aldi for £1.25.
