Fundraiser For Kerry Hospice...Featuring Some Inspiring People From The Kingdom

In March 2012, Donal Walsh was a 15 year old who campaigned for cancer research, raised €50,000 for Crumlin Hospital and beat cancer three times. But we didn’t know him then.

Donal was introduced to us a year later when he won a local hero award in Co. Kerry. By this stage the cancer had returned and he was in the final months of his life.

He was given a platform to speak and chose a message that hit the core of a devastating crisis in Ireland; as a 16-year-old male, Donal was statistically more likely to take his own life than fight for it.

For someone who had spent years fighting, this was both heartbreaking and frustrating.  He simply asked that people appreciate what they have, choose life over death and above all, savour what he could not.

He died on May 13^th, one month short of his 17th birthday.

The front page of The Kerryman on the week of Donal's funeral

A few weeks ago, a package arrived to the Colm Hayes Show on 2fm. In it was a blank 6x6 canvas and a letter, signed by Donal Walsh. It had been written a few weeks before he passed away.

The letter began by explaining that while Tralee General Hospital had a palliative day care unit, it was still without a full time in-patient service. In the frightening and difficult hours of his illness, Donal craved the familiarity and comfort of home. But circumstance meant that he had to travel over two hours to Cork. He was one of thousands who regularly made that journey.

Tireless fundraising of Kerry Hospice volunteers has already raised three of the five million euro needed for the 15 in-patient facility. The canvas was part of the next fundraising event in which well-known people would contribute a piece of artwork. The work would then be sold anonymously for 100 each in the hope that 15,000 could be raised for the unit.

The most remarkable part of the letter was Donal’s acknowledgement that he probably wouldn’t live to see the fundraiser but wanted to do what he could for those who had a chance at life. He had compassion and foresight far beyond his years.

Colm Hayes read the letter on air and Kerry Hospice immediately received calls from people who wanted to contribute in some way. Even after his passing, Donal is still making a difference.

On Friday July 12^th, Colm’s piece will be sold at the Kerry Hospice Fundraiser, along with artwork by well-known people from sport, politics, media, music and television. All funds will go directly towards the construction and maintenance of the palliative care in-patient facility of Tralee General Hospital.

If you can come down and support, please do. The sale will be held in the existing palliative day care unit of Tralee General Hospital on the evening of Friday, July 12^th.

A little something extra

Kerry has one of the highest suicide rates in Ireland. A month before Donal died, a coroner in Killarney reported that five out of six deaths in his quarterly court were male suicides.  One was 30, one 22, another was 21 and two were 16, the same age as Donal.

But Kerry has also produced some remarkable people who have found a message of hope in hopelessness. One such example is Cora O’Brien, who lost her 17-year-old son, David, to suicide in 2007. She organized ‘Nunday’ in 2012, an event that raised thousands for suicide services and saw a small town in north Kerry break a world record.

James Keating and I turned up as a sort of a modern day Radharc team, laden with microphones and cameras and habits. The video was subsequently screened at a number of film festivals.