Kilrush loses highly regarded fundraiser

KILRUSH lost one of its best-known and most highly regarded community activists and fundraisers this week when Flan Carmody died shortly after being diagnosed with an illness. His funeral mass was held at St Senan’s Church on Tuesday.
A Clare County Council road maintenance employee, Flan was noted for his fundraising work for the Irish Kidney Association and, in later years, for Crumlin Children’s Hospital.
His fundraising in aid of the children’s hospital was due to serious burns sustained by Flan’s then five-year-old-son Kyle on November 2, 2006.
Kyle sustained between 12% and 15% bodily burns when his pyjamas caught fire at the family home in Monvana, Kilrush.
He was treated at Dr Eric Carr’s surgery in Kilrush before being moved to Ennis hospital and transferred to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, where he spent the next three months.
“Kyle was due to spend eight months in hospital and he was to lose three fingers at the time,” Flan told The Clare Champion in an interview prior to a fundraiser in October 2009. “I had everyone praying for him and thanks be to God, the skin grew back on his hands again,” he said.
Having received a kidney transplant himself, Flan later became a founding member of the West Clare Kidney Walk, which has raised thousands of euro for kidney care.
At the time of his Clare Champion interview almost three years ago, Flan had already collected €12,000 for the burns unit in Crumlin Children’s Hospital.
“No matter what problems you have, when you walk through the children’s hospital in Crumlin, it knocks your life into perspective fairly fast,” Flan reflected at the time. 
Even in death, Flan was fundraising for Crumlin Children’s Hospital as donations, in lieu of flowers, were donated to the hospital.