An Irishman's Diary

IT’S NOT JUST because of his “spiritual connection” with Ireland (Page 3, October 31st) that Jon Bon Jovi is so looking forward to playing Slane next year. No, apparently he also has a more physical reason. Namely that, when he required emergency knee surgery last year, it was to this country he turned, having been told that our doctors were world-leaders in the area.

I’m always cheered to hear that Ireland is at the cutting edge (sorry) of anything. But I must admit that, when the rock-star described how his New York doctor had bowed to the superiority of Hibernian knee surgeons, my immediate reaction was to assume that someone in Belfast had been entrusted with the job.

For grisly historic reasons, during the 1970s and 1980s, medics in that city developed unrivaled know-how in the reconstruction of that particular joint. So it was doubly surprising to learn that it was in Dublin, and from an expertise acquired in peacetime, that the rocker’s knee had benefited.

The surgeon was one Ray Moran, a sports injury specialist and brother of the famous Kevin. This being so, clearly, the skills that fixed Bon Jovi’s problem must have arisen from nothing more sinister than football. Which produces a lot of knee ligament injuries, but not usually – with the odd exception, like Alf Inge Haaland – as a result of deliberate punishment attacks by Irish extremists.

There was a time, as I say, when this island had a greater familiarity with knee injuries than any civilised country should. And not just knee injuries. We had other local specialities, almost as grim.

During the early 1970s, for example, Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital also built up a considerable body of knowledge in the safe removal of tar and feathers from patients. Eucalyptus oil was the best way to do it, I’m told. But there was a period too when, maybe because of a tar shortage, paint was being used instead.

So, in yet another advance for Irish medical research, the medics had to ring the hospital painting foreman one day for advice. He recommended acetone.

Such expertise soon became obsolete, however, because tarring and feathering was too messy for the paramilitaries’ liking. They turned instead to the kneecap which – assuming sensitivity wasn’t a problem for the gunman – promised to be both neater and, for the victim, more terrifying. At least that was the theory.

In a 1980 study of the subject, John Conroy noted that, during the previous six years, the RUC had logged 756 kneecappings. In 531 cases they were Catholic knees. The other 225 were Protestant (there was nothing in between, back then).

But perhaps the most startling statistic is that the number of victims involved – at around 700 – was substantially smaller that the number of shootings. In other words, some people had been knee-capped twice, or even three times, for the same or similar supposed offences. Which, to put it mildly, would make you wonder about the victims’ mindsets.

Maybe – not that I’d ever want to find out personally – knee-capping wasn’t always as painful as it sounds. In fact, an orthopaedic surgeon who wrote a dissertation on it at the time, based on 86 cases, suggested that the term was a misnomer, since the shots were usually fired at the back of the knee and the injuries rarely involved the patella.

On a similar note, a tender-hearted paramilitary spokesman quoted by Conroy claimed there was a certain code of practice governing the attacks. Gunmen targeted the thigh, usually. You had to be deemed guilty of a particularly serious offence, or of chronic recidivism, to be actually knee-capped.

Indeed. In any case, a West Belfast community worker quoted by Conroy claimed that, far being a deterrent, knee-capping was in some cases considered a windfall. Government compensation certainly helped dull the pain, he suggested. Providing the gunmen had done “a clean job,” it was “money in the bank”.

But that was all 30 years ago now. And although knee-capping hasn’t gone away entirely, it’s no longer so prevalent as to rival contact sport as a source for medical research in the area. Happily, it is to football we now owe the expertise that will allow Jon Bon Jovi bounce around the stage next year like a teenager.

Mind you, he may have to find a few more Irish connections, physical and metaphysical, to fill that field in Slane. I won’t be there myself, for one. It’s not my kind of music anyway. But I’d also be afraid of the potential flash-backs from the 1980s. From hairstyles, to shoulder pads, to the world-leading brilliance of Irish knee surgery, Bon Jovi might just evoke too many unpleasant memories.

fmcnally@irishtimes.com