Mark Pollock | |
---|---|
Born | Ireland | 29 February 1976
Nationality | Irish |
Education | Royal Belfast Academical Institution University College Dublin Trinity College Dublin |
Occupation(s) | Motivational speaker, explorer, and author |
Parent(s) | Barbara and Johnny |
Awards | People of the Year Award UCD Alumnus of the Year in Business |
Medal record | ||
---|---|---|
Commonwealth Rowing Championships | ||
Representing Northern Ireland | ||
2002 Nottingham | Rowing | |
2002 Nottingham | Rowing |
Mark Pollock (born 29 February 1976) is an international motivational speaker, explorer, and author from Ireland [1] [2] who became the first blind man to race to the South Pole. As part of a three-man team called South Pole Flag, alongside Simon O'Donnell and Inge Solheim he took 43 days in January 2009 to complete the Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race. [3] Pollock asserted his disability had slowed him down but they finished fifth overall from the six teams that finished the race. [4] He had participated against nine other teams, including that of BBC personality Ben Fogle and the Olympic gold medallist James Cracknell, a friend of Pollock. [1] An avid rower Pollock has won bronze and silver medals at the 2002 Commonwealth Rowing Championships in Nottingham, England and has also written a book titled Making It Happen. Around 2020, he was involved in the creation of Collaborative Cures. [5]
Pollock was born to Barbara and Johnny [3] in Holywood, County Down. When Mark was five, he lost the sight of his right eye and was forced during the remainder of his childhood to avoid contact team sports to preserve the vision in his left eye. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution where he was a keen rower. In 2002, Pollock graduated from University College Dublin with a Masters of Business Studies. [6] He later studied Business and Economics in Trinity College Dublin, where he became a champion schools rower and captain of the university's rowing club but aged 22 he lost the sight in his left eye and was then suddenly blind. [1] In 2010, just weeks before his wedding, Pollock fell from an upstairs window, breaking his back and fracturing his skull. This caused bleeding on the brain and resulted in paralysis.
"I just wanted to be independent again. I started to get the tools that might help me: my computer; my speaking clock; my watch; Larry, my guide dog.”
Pollock on his search for independence. [1]
Pollock has been blind since the age of twenty-two when his left retina became detached. [4] This had a devastating effect on him as he believed at the time that blind people could not have a life which he perceived as normal – that they could not participate in sport, work, study, socialise or date. [1] Before his operation he had been about to embark on a city job in London, UK but after it he was left with no option but to return home to his mother.
"They didn't know how to cope with a blind person, and I couldn't tell them how it would work, because I had never worked as a blind person. It was a Catch-22.”
Pollock on his search for employment. [1]
Pollock enrolled in a course to help come to terms with his disability. He left for Dublin with his guide dog Larry and began putting himself forward for job interviews. Prospective employers were uncertain as to how to approach him. [1] Eventually the father of one of his college friends assigned him to organising corporate entertainment. [1] He returned to rowing and won bronze and silver medals for Northern Ireland in the 2002 Commonwealth Rowing Championships. [1] He engaged in other athletic pursuits, including running six marathons in seven days with a sighted partner across the Gobi Desert, China in 2003 when he raised tens of thousands of euro for the charity Sightsavers International. [1] On 10 April 2004, he competed in the North Pole Marathon on the sixth anniversary of his blindness. [1]
To mark the 10th anniversary of blindness Pollock explored the challenge of racing to the South Pole.
Uncertain over whether to make the trip to the South Pole and concerned over the impact of sastrugi on his blindness, Pollock consulted with the explorer Pat Falvey who had completed the journey eighteen months previously. [4]
Pollock wrote Making It Happen to detail his struggle with blindness and his attempts at rebuilding his life. This included running numerous marathons, establishing his own business and becoming an international public speaker. [7] It can only be bought online from his website. [7]
The trek cost Pollock around €250,000. [1] His training included spending time in Norway to acclimatise himself to the sastrugi. [1] Pollock, O'Donnell and Solheim travelled 770 kilometres, averaging fourteen hours journey time each day, whilst lugging 90 kilo sleds behind them. He pulled a 200lb sled for at least twelve hours each day, for a consecutive forty-three days. [1] Temperatures dropped as low as −50C during the expedition, with the team experiencing blisters, hunger and extreme exhaustion. O'Donnell endured severe frostbite on one ear and fingers [3] and Solheim lost a filling from his tooth due to the extreme temperatures. Pollock told the Irish Independent that they "just can't believe" they had arrived and that they "only started to believe it was possible when we were one hour away, which was an amazing feeling". [4] He described how they did not know what to do when they arrived, describing "such a burst of energy" that had engulfed them. [4]
Pollock returned to Ireland on a 3 February 2009 where he was greeted at Dublin Airport, having been delayed by the extreme weather conditions which gripped Dublin that week.
On 7 February 2009, he appeared on the RTÉ One chat show Tubridy Tonight . [8]
Pollock hosted the documentary series Yes I Can which aired in November 2011 on Setanta Sports.
In July 2010 Mark fell from a second storey window. He broke his back and was left paralysed. Mark is now living his own lessons, deciding how to overcome this second blow. A pioneer, he is exploring the frontiers of spinal cord injury recovery through aggressive physical therapy and robotic technology. In 2015 he sued Enda and Madeline Cahill, his friends and owners of the property he was staying at when he had his fall, [9] claiming the Cahills had disregarded a “reasonably foreseeable risk” of him being seriously injured and that they should have made sure the window remained closed or at least warned Mr Pollock it was open, saying “There was no justification whatsoever to neglect such a risk." The court found the couple liable saying he was “satisfied that the Cahills failed to discharge the common law duty of care they owed as occupiers. The open window was a real risk to Mr Pollock. They created that risk.” Mr Pollock's lawyers confirmed he had limited his claim to a maximum of £2 million, the limit of the Cahills' household insurance, so the couple did not have to pay out themselves. [10] [11]
Pollock has embarked on an ambitious experimental treatment in an effort to overcome his paralysis in cooperation with an innovative treatment centre in California called Project Walk. [12]
In addition to the honorary degree awarded by Trinity College, Dublin mentioned above, Pollock has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Queen's University Belfast, and has been named a Young Global Leader. Mark also was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2015 by Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. [13]
In 2012, Pollock was honored with a Rehab People of the Year Award.
In 2020, Pollock was awarded UCD Alumnus of the Year in Business. [14]
The Late Late Show, with its title often shortened to The Late Late, is an Irish chat show. It is the world's second longest-running late-night talk show, after the American The Tonight Show, and is the longest-running live talk show. Perceived as the official flagship television programme of RTÉ, it is regarded as an Irish television institution, and is broadcast live across normally two hours in front of a studio audience on Friday nights at 9:30 pm between September and May. Certain segments are sometimes pre-recorded and aired within the live parts of the show.
Gabriel Mary Byrne was an Irish presenter and host of radio and television. His most notable role was as the first host of The Late Late Show over a 37-year period spanning 1962 until 1999. The Late Late Show is the world's longest-running live chat show. He was affectionately known as "Uncle Gay", "Gaybo" or "Uncle Gaybo". His time working in Britain with Granada Television saw him become the first person to introduce the Beatles on-screen, and Byrne was later the first to introduce Boyzone on-screen in 1993. According to Byrne, Paul McCartney asked him to be the Beatles' agent during a sound check for his show but he declined the offer.
Ryan Tubridy is an Irish broadcaster. He currently presents the weekday mid-morning programme The Ryan Tubridy Show on Virgin Radio UK, as well as a weekend programme on Sundays.
Joseph Duffy is an Irish radio and TV presenter employed by RTÉ. One of the public service broadcaster's highest-earning stars, he is the current presenter of Liveline, an interview and phone-in chat show broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on Mondays to Fridays between 13:45 and 15:00.
Ógra Fianna Fáil(Irish:[ˈoːɡɾˠəˌfʲiən̪ˠəˈfˠaːlʲ]; meaning "Youth of Fianna Fáil") is the youth wing of Fianna Fáil.
Ian Dempsey is an Irish presenter of television and breakfast radio. He is the long-running presenter of the breakfast show on Today FM, self-titled The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show, which runs from 6-9 am each weekday. He has won several major awards for his programmes and was the Republic of Ireland's tenth most-listened-to broadcaster in 2007.
Miriam O'Callaghan is an Irish television current affairs presenter with RTÉ.
Barry Cahill is a former Gaelic footballer who played for the St Brigid's club in Castleknock, the Dublin county team and his province, Leinster, during his playing career. Cahill announced his retirement from Dublin football in February 2013. He retired from St Brigid's in December 2016.
Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin is an Irish academic, teacher, broadcaster and high-profile science communicator. She also won the Rose of Tralee contest in 2005 and toured internationally as the lead singer of an Irish traditional music band. In 2022, she was appointed to chair a national forum on biodiversity loss, presenting its report to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in April 2023, and presenting on the topic to a committee of the UN General Assembly later that month.
Rónán Fallon is an Irish former hurler who played as a centre-back for the Dublin senior team.
The James Joyce Award, also known as the Honorary Fellowship of the Society, is an award given by the Literary and Historical Society (L&H) of University College Dublin (UCD) for those who have achieved outstanding success in their given field. Recipients have ranged from respected academics, lauded political figures, skilled actors and, like James Joyce himself, writers. It is the highest award that an Irish University society can give. It is named after one of the society's most distinguished alumni, James Joyce, the author of Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
The Ray D'Arcy Show is the title given to two differing versions of a radio programme hosted by Ray D'Arcy, originally broadcast on Irish commercial radio station Today FM from the late 1990s until 2014 before transferring in February 2015 to the country's national public service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann-owned radio station RTÉ Radio 1. The show is broadcast each weekday afternoon.
Jacqui Hurley is a sports broadcaster and chat show host employed by RTÉ, Ireland's national radio and television station, where she is a regular sports news presenter on RTÉ News and presents The Sunday Game highlights programme and co-presents Up for the Match alongside Des Cahill. She co-presented Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1 from 2009 to 2023. Hurley has played at the highest Irish level in the sports of basketball and camogie and currently manages the Irish under-16 girls basketball team.
John Murray is an Irish journalist and broadcaster. Currently heard on Weekend Sport, he presented The John Murray Show on RTÉ Radio 1, "focus[ing] on lifestyle and entertainment items", filling the slot from 09:00 to 10:00 previously occupied by Ryan Tubridy, who moved to RTÉ 2fm. Murray was one of the presenters of Morning Ireland, Ireland's most popular radio show, before going on to host his own weekly programme, The Business.
Tubridy was a talk radio show, presented by Ryan Tubridy each weekday morning on RTÉ 2fm, from September 2010 until July 2015. Along with The Colm Hayes Show, which succeeded it on the schedules until 2013, Tubridy was intended as a long-term replacement for its long-running predecessor The Gerry Ryan Show.
University College Dublin is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest university and among Europe's most prestigious.
Paul O'Donovan is an Irish lightweight rower. He is a double Olympic champion in the lightweight double sculls where he set a new world's best time for that event and is a seven-time world champion in single and double sculls.
The 54th season of the Irish television programme, The Late Late Show, the world's longest-running chat show, began on 4 September 2015 and concluded on 27 May 2016. Ryan Tubridy's seventh season as host, it aired on RTÉ One each Friday evening from 21:30.
William Gerard Anthony Holohan is an Irish public health physician who served as Chief Medical Officer of Ireland from May 2008 to 1 July 2022. Fergal Bowers described him as being "as familiar as Dr Anthony Fauci in the US and arguably as influential".
The Clare county football team represents Clare in men's Gaelic football and is governed by Clare GAA, the county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The team competes in the three major annual inter-county competitions; the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, the Munster Senior Football Championship and the National Football League.
Collaborative Cures was established in 2020 to scale Mark Pollock's work to bring people together to cure paralysis in our lifetime.