Radiothon was community radio at its best

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

If last week’s Galway Bay fm Radiothon didn’t raise one red cent, it would still have been an incredible success.

Because fundraising was only one side to this project – it was also about raising awareness of the two charities to benefit from that effort.

When I say that we should consider ourselves lucky if we know nothing of the work of Cancer Care West or Galway Hospice, it’s not because of what they do – it’s because of what you have that brings you into their sphere in the first place.

But for those who lean on one or both of them at crucial times in their lives, they somehow offer you light and hope no matter how dark those days.

And the Radiothon was about the stories of those people who either came through those times to recover from cancer or who grew to cherish the final months, weeks or days with a loved one in the remarkably peaceful and dignified surrounds of the Galway Hospice in Renmore.

Keith Finnegan spent weeks preparing interviews to highlight these stories – and boy were they powerful testimonies to the work and love and devotion of Cancer Care West and the Galway Hospice.

He spoke with families who will be forever grateful for the dignity with which their relative – father, mother or child – were treated in the Hospice.

They spoke of the part that Cancer Care West played in making chemo or radiotherapy more palatable – from the counselling and the support to the logistical solution that Inis Aoibhinn provides…a bed and a place to meet others travelling your path as you pass the long hours between treatments.

It truly is a shelter from the storm.

People told their stories of coping with the devastating impact of cancer, or recovery and of losing someone you love; of the lasting impression that ordinary people made on their lives at such an awful time.

Imagine having to give birth to your son at thirty weeks because you’ve been diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of 32; imagine that your dearest wish is to be allowed to cherish the last days of your terminally ill little son’s life.

There was the story of Joe Ring, brother of Minister Michael Ring, which touched so many – or the staff member at Galway Hospice who has now experienced first-hand just what her colleagues do for you when a close family member needs their help and care.

Those were the sort of stories ordinary people told over the airwaves – and that too required a level of courage that you could only admire.

The staff of Galway Bay FM pulled out all the stops over three days of inspiring broadcasting – the sort of radio that shows what community is all about – and they did so much of it in their own time for free.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.