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Galway families join in festive welcome for Chernobyl kids
Three Galway families are hosting children from the Chernobyl region this Christmas.
The children arrived last Thursday week and will be in Galway until January 5 and they have already been taken into the bosom of their various communities so they can experience a Galway Christmas.
Fiona Conneely of Camus in Conamara has been hosting Chernobyl since 2006 and this year with husband Joseph and their four adult children are hosts to Veronika (15) and her sister Yulia (13).
Actually the Conneely ‘children’, four boys and a girl aged from 21 to 25 years have just arrived home from England to spend Christmas at home and to share it with the two Chernobyl children. Both have been with the Conneely family before and it’s Veronika’s second Christmas in Conamara.
On Sunday they went Christmas carolling in Oranmore and hooked up with the Egan McDonagh family who are hosting a young girl also under the same programme, Adi Roche’s Chernobyl Children International (CCI).
“We will bring them to a panto and to the cinema for sure to see Paddington but honestly, they love walking down Shop Street just looking at the lights and they loved the Continental Market on Eyre Square. We are delighted to be sharing out Christmas with them,” said Fiona.
Paula McGurrell, a choreographer and dance teacher in Galway city, says hosting for the CCI has “changed my life.”
Paula, a Dubliner who is living in Knocknacarra, will be bringing her eleven year old Russian girl to spend Christmas with the McGurrells.
“I had always done charity work either with Childline or with the elderly but hadn’t for years until I read an article about hosting children from Chernobyl and a plea for host families and I applied. I can honestly say, it has changed my life. I get more out of it than they do. They have so little at home and they expect so little when they come here. My friends arrived with gifts for her and she didn’t want to accept the second lot saying she already had got some,” says Paula.
Paula doesn’t have children of her own but works with children year round and has no regrets at signing up as a host. “I am learning Russian because it’s too frustrating not knowing what they are saying and obviously the children pick up some English while they stay in Galway. We will go ice-skating and to a panto in Dublin and possibly the cinema. She loves the cinema. We will also try and hook up with the other Chernobyl children in Galway if we can.”
Paula takes two children during the summer, which is for a longer period, up to three weeks, though during that time there are more group activities.
The four children being hosted in Galway are part of a group of 30 in total who arrived at Dublin Airport for the Christmas as part of CCI’s work to bring children from improvished backgrounds and state-run institutions in Belarus to Ireland for wholesome holidays. Many of the children develop bonds with their host families and return again and again.
The summer visits which are longer almost always involve medical check-ups and sometimes treatment for some of the Belarus children.
Voluntary CEO of CCI Adi Roche said: “This is one of the most joyous and heart-warming moments of the year for me. While the needs here at home are great, it is marvellous to see the Irish people reaching out to those beyond our shores and showing love to abandoned and orphaned children who live with huge physical and intellectual disabilities.
“Nothing as magical as this will ever have happened in their lives. This is the true meaning of Christmas – it’s about the giving, not the getting – the giving with open hearts, open arms and open homes.”
CCI has delivered €96.5 million worth of humanitarian and medical aid to impoverished communities and children across Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia since 1986. More than 24,700 children from Belarus – the country most affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster – have come to Ireland with CCI for life-prolonging holidays during the summer and at Christmas time.
■ For more information or to make a donation, log on to www.chernobylinternational.com or call 021-4558774.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
