KIND neighbours on Cape Clear have been looking after their friend and neighbour Ed Harper, the blind goat herder, who ran into difficultly when Siri on his iPhone 6 went deaf.
Ed said that at the moment he has no carer, but in the past could always rely on his phone to keep him connected with people on a daily basis.

‘Being either too incompetent, or lazy, I wasn’t able to use the touch screen properly,’ he added, ‘so when Siri went deaf I was faced with the choice of sending it off the island to be repaired or get a new one.’

His neighbour, Dave Calvert, who rents the yurts on the island, set up a GoFundMe page with a €500 target that was surpassed in super quick time.

To Ed’s utter delight, some of the ambulance workers whom he supported on a picket line – over a union recognition issue – made donations and sent him messages of support.

As luck would have it, a friend also gave Ed his old iPhone 6, so now he has that, his old phone, and €550.

Rather cleverly, Ed has decided to repair the microphone on the old phone and treat it to a new battery, and to buy a new battery for the phone he was given. That way he will always have a back-up.

‘I am so lucky to be living on Cape. People of all generations have been so kind to me in so many ways,’ he said, including one friend who did the necessary evil of transferring all of his data from one phone to the other.

Ed explained his reluctance to send his original phone for repairs because it would have meant he’d be home alone and effectively cut off for three days.
‘Given the year I’ve had,’ he joked, ‘that would be the time I’d fall and be lying there for three days, or I’d fall down three times.’