RECRUITS about to finish their training as part of the Shannon Airport Fire Service/Police climbed Croagh Patrick recently while wearing full fire kit, to raise money for Milford Care Centre.
Nine people took part including Mark Kirwan, who said several of the group had an attachment to the chosen charity.
“As a group we decided to do something for charity and we chose Milford Care Centre because a number of us would have had someone who went through there at some point.
“The transport and food was organised by the airport itself, we left the airport at around 7am and arrived up there around 10am. It took us about two hours to get to the top.”
While the weather was quite good, it was a very tough challenge.
“It was pretty tough with the fire gear and the boots, but there was an awful lot of support from other people going up and down. In total it would have taken about three and a half to four hours.”
While it wasn’t easy, he said that “the whole premise of doing it was that it was something hard and we did it for charity”.
He said that around €3,000 had been raised for Milford, with much of it coming in through its GoFundMe page at https://www.gofundme.com/f/croagh-patrick-class-of-2022-hill-walk.
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.