The past 12 months have been momentous ones for the people of County Clare. In this week’s Clare Champion we take a look back at the highs of lows of 2024 in the Banner County.
On a sunny August afternoon, while many of his college friends were lying on some beach or relaxing on a foreign holiday, Doonbeg medical student, Oran McInerney, was two tenths of a second from a massacre.
He was in the middle of a firing range in eastern Ukraine, training locals in basic first aid, when a cluster munition fired from a Russian fighter jet fell from the sky and almost literally hit him on the head.
What happened next was chaos.
Cluster bombs are vicious killers. On detonation, the bombs divide into dozens of smaller munitions and kill brutally and indiscriminately. But cluster bombs also fire forward, and on that fateful day, the Russian pilot pressed the detonator a fraction of a second too late, raining terror on the land just behind Oran and the people he was training.
In August of 2024, Oran returned from his third humanitarian tour in Ukraine.
For more on this story and all the latest news from the Banner County, pick up this week’s Clare Champion or view our digital edition which is available HERE.
Andrew Hamilton is a journalist, investigative reporter and podcaster who has been working in the media in Ireland for the past 20 years. His areas of special interest include the environment, mental health and politics.