'How the kidnapping of a businessman cost me €2m'

On the evening of October 20th, 1975, my father followed the winding road wrapped around the Silvermine Mountains which connected Tipperary to Limerick.

There was an urgency to the car journey – I was in the passenger seat with my mother, already two weeks overdue.

Limerick hospital was an hour away – however, the day coincided with one of the largest Garda operations in the history of the State.

Following a tip-off, roads around Co Limerick and neighbouring counties were blocked, as gardaí searched for Dutch businessman Dr Tiede Herrema, who had been kidnapped earlier that month.

I waited impatiently as terrible roads and frequent checkpoints were negotiated – the journey gaining in urgency as each minute passed. I like to imagine pale-faced armed men hurriedly waving the small, blue Renault 5 through security cordons as soon as they realised the potential impact of their delays.

I was, eventually and thankfully, born in a hospital – moments after midnight.

That same morning – October 21st, 1975 – gardaí would follow the kidnappers to a house in Monasterevin, Co Kildare, beginning a further two-week siege.

It was many years later before I would again feel the personal impact of Ireland’s most famous kidnapping.

I have an on-off relationship with the national lottery – answering their call regularly for a few weeks, before falling neglectful, sometimes for months at a time.

When I do engage, I always choose two panels – one consisting of the ages of family members (and therefore regularly changing), and the other being the dates of the month connected to family birthdays.

A few years ago, through the latter panel, I matched five numbers – claiming a month’s rent. However, the excitement and enjoyment was quickly extinquished when I realised how close I was to the €2 million jackpot.

My own birthdate, 21, had let me down. The winning sixth number was 20 – the date I surely would have been born had it not been for those endless delays many years earlier.

I think we all know who the real victim was in the kidnapping of Dr Tiede Herrema.