Tipperary man's appeal to have President Biden endorse stuttering mental wellbeing group

Former Templemore councillor Michael C Ryan is appealing to the powers-that-be to get a meeting with US President Joe Biden during his visit to Ireland this week.

Michael, a co-founder of Stuttering Awareness Mental Wellbeing Ireland, has met Mr Biden previously when he came to Ireland in 2016.

Now, Mr Ryan and his group are campaigning to have President Biden, as a person who overcame a stutter himself, to endorse their work.

Among those he has been in contact with to get that precious meeting are Mr Biden’s Mayo cousin Joe Bluett and the Táinaiste, Mícheál Martin.

He is hoping that they can get some time with the President when he comes to Dublin Castle this Thursday.

He described Mr Biden as his "hero".

“Over the last few years we have campaigned all over Ireland and the USA to gain the support of President Joe Biden ,” said Michael

“We believe that gaining his support would send a strong powerful message of hope to the 50,000-plus individuals who stutter,” he said.

And quoting President Biden’s use of Seamus Heaney, Michael said: “Now is the time to make hope and history rhyme.”

Michael and his son, Shane, met Joe at Dublin Castle in 2016 when he was on a visit to Ireland.

“He was a very nice man and I found it very easy to chat to him. He was very down to earth and we spoke about our own difficulties with stammering and how it has affected our lives,” said Michael.

The former Fine Gael councillor and former chair of the Irish Stammering Association, said that he had been working with people who have stammers for a long time.

“But, in more recent times, I have been working with people all over the world through Zoom calls and using Facebook. Basically, we tell our own story to them and hope that by doing this we can help them to open up and create greater awareness of stammering,” he said.

He said that he had no difficulty in discussing his stammer any time and believed that by talking about it, you raise awareness.

“But, there are many people who are crippled by stammering because they don’t want to open up and they try to hide it,” Michael said.