Jonathan Healy

I don't know what it is about my blood.

They don't nibble on me at all, whereas my good lady wife is the equivalent of a Michelin-starred restaurant when they are nearby.

First of all, why do mosquitoes like some people more than others?

Now, people who go particularly to foreign climes, and I'm thinking Southeast Asia heading to places like Thailand, they will, as well as getting their all immunisations from their GP before they go, they tend to pack the deet because deet, we were always told, will keep the mosquitoes away.

So what has changed?

It's funny though, mosquitoes, I mean, they can be very, very serious.

And they obviously carry malaria, but they also carry other bugs as well.

Humans need to keep mosquitoes away from them as best they can.

And DEET has always been the best way of doing that.

I have seen mosquitoes in Ireland.

I've seen them in my house.

I've seen them around.

I mean, they're just kind of lazy that they don't want to nibble on us here.

Are conditions just not right for them?

Okay, so that's when you definitely need to do a little bit more.

Can I just, before I let you go, Graham, there was a story recently, there was a councillor in Cork had asked that the world's smallest public statue be commemorated for the mosquito that may have given Oliver Cromwell malaria.

And while I did have a good chuckle at this story, I had to ask myself the question, was malaria from mosquitoes a common thing in the 17th century?

Because if we don't have it now, did we have it then?

So we may have killed Granwell or an Irish mosquito may have killed Granwell.

That would have been a great help to us all.