Cissie Roughan Award for Channel swimmer

KILRUSH Town Council hosted the annual Cissie Roughan Awards at the Vandeleur Walled Garden last Thursday evening and the 2012 overall winner was endurance swimmer Fionnuala Walsh.
On October 9, the Cappa woman became the first Clare person to swim the English Channel and only the 15th Irish person to complete the 15 hour and 26 minute swim from Dover to Calais in France. All money raised from her efforts was donated to Muscular Dystrophy Ireland and Pieta House.
This was Fionnuala’s second attempt at the Channel, having had her hopes dashed on August 8 by fog, a couple of hundred metres from the French coastline.
Training for the Channel swim started in earnest in September 2010 and, since then, Fionnuala has spent countless hours training in pools, lakes, seas and, mostly, in the Shannon Estuary. Before leaving for France, she had amassed more than 1.5 million metres in training.
The Cissie Roughan Awards scheme was instituted in 1993 and honours the memory of the late Cissie Roughan, who was the first female elected to Kilrush Town Council.
“The Cissie Roughan nominations are a way to enable ordinary people to acknowledge friends and neighbours for their good works. We have lots of people doing great things and it’s nice for the town council to provide the opportunity for public recognition of the valuable works, activities and involvements,” Mayor of Kilrush Mairéad O’Brien said at the presentation night.
The other award winners included Kilrush Care of the Aged, who organise day trips and a Christmas party for the elderly in the town and music teacher Peig Martin, who imparts her knowledge and passion for Irish music. Anne Hayes and James McMahon, who are deeply involved in Kilrush Comhaltas, were also honoured. The re-formed Kilrush CCÉ was established in 2006.
The other award winners were Flan Carmody RIP (fundraising), Margaret Purtill and Peggy Cahill (New Shanakyle Graveyard renovation), Matthew Kelly (underage GAA and soccer), Martin Cahill and retired town councillor Jack Fennell. A large crowd attended the presentation night.