This article is from page 18 of the 2013-01-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
THE number of people born on Clare soil swelled by one in May when baby Eirinn Christina Robbins Logue came into the world on the side of the road in Corofin.
Eirinn’s parents, Caralyn Robbins and Phil Logue, were about to drop their two older children at their aunt’s house at Laghtagoona in Corofin before carrying on to hospital in Galway, when Eirinn decided that her big moment had arrived.
The momentous birth took place on the road outside Caralyn’s sister Crystel’s house, with dad Phil acting as a more than capable midwife.
“By the time I got to the driveway, I couldn’t even drive up to the house, I had to stop right there. I was like a headless chicken,” said delighted Phil.
“It was me that delivered the baby. Caralyn was standing up, she had got out of the car to try and get into the house, so she was standing up leaning on the door of the jeep. She said ‘the baby is coming, the baby is coming’.
“Sure enough, the baby’s head was already out. She told me that the baby was coming right then so I cupped the baby’s head in my hand. There was a big whoosh and the baby came flying out and I caught it.
“Crystel was on the phone to the 999 operator, who was giving us advice, and she then came over and helped wrap up the baby and we handed it up to Caralyn. Out of the three of us, I think Mum was the most calm. Myself and Crystel were panicking but Caralyn was the most calm of all of us.
“I really have to give my sincere thanks to Crystel, I don’t know what I would have done if she wasn’t there, and Peter and the rest of the ambulance crew and paramedics and also the 999 operator for their professionalism and for taking care of us so well.”
According to Phil, his partner Caralyn had a dream last week that the baby would be born in the car on the way to the hospital and the baby would be born a girl. Weighing just over six pounds, baby Eir- inn is fit and healthy and is already being doted on by her four-year-old sister Isabelle and her three-year-old brother Aiden.
Figures released by the Central Statistic Office (CSO) last week revealed that the number of people born in County Clare have plummeted since the removal of maternity facilities from the county’s hospitals in the late 1980s.
“This is the first of my children to actually have been born on Clare soil and that is something that we are very happy about,” continued Phil.
“I think if we hadn’t already decided on a name for Eirinn, we would have called her Clare, but we already had the name picked.”