Proceeds from a Killarney book, described by one national newspaper as a coffee table classic, are being distributed to the three chosen charities with the Covid-19 team at University Hospital Kerry already receiving over €7,000 worth of luxury gift vouchers by way of a thank you for their dedication during the pandemic.
Killarney Behind the Mask, which now had pride of place in bookshelves all over the world, was a hugely ambitious project undertaken by Killarney photographer Marie Carroll-O’Sullivan who captured, in words and pictures, the lives of so many men, women and children in Killarney during the unprecedented lockdown of 2021.
As well as raising funds for the two main charities, the Killarney branch of the Irish Cancer Society and Pieta-Nathan’s Walk, the proceeds also ensured Christmas came that little bit early for the UHK Covid team who received almost 90 VIP vouchers for Bricín in Killarney, the International Hotel and the O’Donoghue Ring Hotel Group who were all very generous supporters of the project.
UHK Clinical Nurse Manager, Margaret Griffin, who accepted the vouchers with colleagues this week, said the gifts will go to the entire Covid-19 ward team, including anaesthetic and nursing staff, redeployed nurses, health care attendants, domestic staff, supplies, porter, maintenance, physiotherapists and biomedical departments.
“On behalf of my hard working colleagues, I would like to say a huge thank you to Marie, to each and every person who supported and bought a copy of Behind the Mask and to Mary O’Carroll – Marie’s friend and a phlebotomist at UHK – for providing the link to University Hospital Kerry to receive this amazing gesture of kindness. We are truly overwhelmed,” she said.
Killarney Behind the Mask is an insightful and engaging compilation of pictures and stories charting the lives and experiences of dozens of people in Killarney during the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 when lives were turned upside down.
The 360-page hardback book recalls the restrictions throughout and reveals the day-to-day lives of the local people, the sacrifices they made, the friends and family they missed, the thoughts that filled their minds and the return to normality they longed for.
It details how Kerry’s oldest man adjusted to the new circumstances, how parents of babies born during lockdown coped and how neighbours and friends reached out like never before to those needing a little extra support.
It tells the remarkable stories of paramedics and fire service personnel working through Covid times, elderly people cocooning at home and desperately missing their families, children gutted that their communion or confirmation ceremonies had to be cancelled, families finding meaningful ways to pass the long days and nights under lockdown and the remarkable courage and resilience displayed by so many.
The woman behind the incredible charity venture, Marie Carroll O’Sullivan remarked: “It was baby steps all the way. If I thought too much about the overall graft that writing a book entails, I might have run a mil ebut, with restrictions in place, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t”.
She thanked everybody that donated to the cause, from those that contributed a fiver to those who donated hundreds of euro as, without them, the story of how Killarney coped during Covid might never have been told.
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