University of Galway

And this man who lines out for Clare's senior footballers is also working towards a different kind of goal off the pitch.

Mark McInerney is completing his PhD at the University of Galway where he's investigating ways to help the body's immune cells find and attack solid tumours, including those associated with colorectal and ovarian cancers.

His research is supported by a scholarship partnership with Breakthrough Cancer Research.

Their CEO, Orla Dolan, joins us as well as Mark.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Orla Breakthrough Cancer Research is supporting Mark's PhD, as I mentioned, through this scholarship partnership with the University of Galway.

Why is it important for you to invest in early stage research like this?

of the immense suffering in Gaza, continuing tensions in the Occupied West Bank and the possibility of further regional conflict.

So what does this election mean for Israel itself, Palestinian rights and the future of the region? Joining me to discuss all of this is Professor Ray Murphy, Human Rights Professor at the University of Galway and Donegal Bacchan, Associate Professor of Politics at DCU's School of Law and Government.

And thanks to both of you for joining me on the show.

Danica, it does seem very much Israel to be a country divided.

Yeah, it is going to be fascinating to see how all this plays out, whether any sort of government can be formed by either Netanyahu or Eisencott, or whether the country will have to go back to the polls in the spring.

Gentlemen, thank you so much both for your contributions.

Ray Murphy there, a human rights professor at the University of Galway and the Newmarket of Fergus native and associate professor of politics at DCU School of Law and Government.

Don't go back on.

But the point was that what I had realised at that point, that I had always been drawn into... help provision whether that was in the fire service or whether that was you know being a medic and now with the personnel support service that like my identity was in help seeking I just wasn't consciously making those decisions I was unconsciously moving into those spaces where I was prepared to help other people you know And that sort of facilitated the academic journey.

And because of that, I did a diploma in the University of Galway in social care.

And that spilled into a degree, an honours degree in education training in the University of Galway.

and then i had conversations with people in in the personnel support service and there's one particular guy his name was martin gillick and he was he was very fundamental actually at the time um for uh sort of convincing me that i was kind of good enough to do the masters in trinity college he had just done it you know because i didn't feel i never felt that i belonged in academia you know um and uh yeah he was very supportive so i went and did that and and then I did a module on that in suicide, and I met my professor, Louise Doyle, and Professor Brian Keogh, who were two, they're like, these people are incredible.

They are absolutely academic heavyweights.

They're courting different states to be able to have this work together.

Yeah, University of Galway was one of the places where the governor went and talked about how they're keeping students there by their placement, getting jobs, that kind of a thing.

I mean, how fun is that to think other states are working with Ireland? That country must be pretty proactive right now.

They must have some business leaders who are doing what they can to keep the citizens in the country and try to build their population back up.

Yeah.

University of Galway was one of the places where the governor went and talked about how they're keeping students there by their placement, getting jobs, that kind of a thing.

I mean, how fun is that to think other states are working with Ireland? That country must be pretty proactive right now.

They must have some business leaders who are doing what they can to keep the...