I arrived in Rio de Janeiro last Sunday week and it has been non-stop since. Before I came here, the whole talk had been about the Zika virus and how dangerous this city is. Well, I haven’t seen a mosquito or a mugger since landing. Hopefully it stays that way.

Then again, I am fairly going through the canisters of insect repellent. I don’t want another mosquito-inspired visit to hospital – let alone Zika. As for personal safety, I did hear a controlled explosion being carried out on a suspect bag about two miles from our hotel last Sunday morning. Apart from that, it’s been very friendly and welcoming, although the locals haven’t a word of English with some restaurants showing pictures on their menus for their non-Portuguese speaking customers.

The streets around the Rio Olympic Park are heaving with 85,000 police and soldiers – not fertile territory for any would-be thief or bomber. And these no-nonsense troops will shoot you without batting an eyelid. They are taking no chances.

(We were standing waiting on our shuttle bus listening to the hurling on our phones when we heard “boom, boom” in the distance.)

So, the drill is: we have this shuttle which takes us to the media base at Olympic Park, which is way outside downtown Rio. They come every half hour or so. Many of the events are held at the park but there are venues scattered all over this vast city. There are 11,000 athletes and as many journalists. The athletes’ village en route is a cluster of dozens of high-rise flats festooned with flags and banners of competing nations hanging from their balconies. After we arrive at Olympic Park, we must go through airport-style security each time. Our building, called the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) must be about twice the size of Croke Park, two storeys high.

If the huge swell of hundreds of TV companies who have teams of reporters here is anything to go by, then this is really the biggest possible world event imaginable. It is quite difficult to describe the scale of this operation. When going to events, there are dedicated shuttles, hundreds of them zooming in and out of Olympic Park, ferrying reporters and cameramen here and there 24 hours a day. So there must be folk watching amid the scepticism.

All around, there are literally thousands of volunteers in bright yellow shirts who are working here for nothing and at their own cost, including some Irish people who have paid for themselves to be here and part of the razzmatazz. In the huge all-night canteen, the queues are so long, they just weigh your plate of food to save time.

Oh, and what about the weather? Well, it is wintertime here but last Saturday I watched the rowing in 33 degrees heat. What must it be like in summer! Anyway, must dash now to the boxing arena. It’s quite the trek. It isn’t just the competitors that need to be fit around here.

Celibacy laws failing religion

The revelations regarding the seminary in Maynooth are sad. Sad is the right word for many reasons. But it once again gives rise to the debate about celibacy in the priesthood. Priests are not a different species to the rest of us. So why are they denied the right to fall in love or get married like everyone else?

It’s a natural human instinct which they are supposed to suppress. Surely the positives of changing the laws on celibacy and marriage outweigh the negatives at this stage. After all, it is a manmade law, so why can’t it be reversed?