Kilmihil Tree of Hope planted

LAST Saturday saw the planting of a so-called ‘Tree of Hope’ at the People’s Park in Kilmihil.

Organised by the local Darkness Into Light committee, it stands as a symbol of hope for people. Camilla Cleary is part of the committee and she said it had been suggested by Pieta, in line with an initiative they are running around the country. “Basically it’s for World Mental Health Day and Pieta suggested we plant a tree as a Tree of Hope, so that’s what we’re doing in Kilmihil in the People’s Park.

“It’s just a tree to hopefully give people a bit of hope, it’s something that is happening nationwide, not just in Kilmihil. It’s our first year and we were supposed to have the Darkness into Light walk, but obviously it didn’t go ahead, so it was suggested that we do this.”

The local Darkness Into Light committee is newly formed and unfortunately things haven’t gone their way. “It’s our first year so we had been planning to go ahead with the Darkness Into Light Walk on May 9. Obviously with the Covid restrictions we had to cancel all of that, then it was set to be on October 10 but that had to be cancelled again. Unfortunately we picked the worst year of all to start,” says Camilla. While the familiar Darkness Into Light walk couldn’t go ahead, they did have a modified version, which still brought in some €4,000 in May.

“We are very grateful to people for what they have done, unfortunately the way things are we haven’t been able to do things we would like to have,” says Camilla.