Ladies To Drive Through 32 Counties In One Day For Charity

FOUR ladies are giving Recovery Haven a boost this month when they attempt to drive through all 32 counties of Ireland in 24 hours in aid of the cancer respite care centre.

“We just got a brainwave one night and thought could we do it? So we said if we were going to do it we’d do it for a charity,” said one of the drivers, Nicola Baker, who will take up the task with Karen McKenna, Linda Murphy and Joanne Coffey.

“We decided to pick something local and went with Recovery Haven because every one of us know people who have been helped by them in the past and they do incredible work,” said Nicola.

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The route will see them head south first and then up towards Dublin, zig-zagging into the midlands all the way up to the north of the country, then coming down the west coast and into Limerick for the home stretch.

Without taking stops and the traffic into account, they estimate the journey will take 17 hours, but they think 22 hours would be a more realistic length of time.

The four girls expect to burn two tanks of petrol along the way which ‘Eamonn O’Connell Haulage’ will be covering the cost of. All told, the journey will cover just over 1,000 miles.

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To prove they’ve done the 32 counties, the girls will take a picture of the road sign that welcomes drivers into each county as soon as they enter.

“We came to a number of garages and straight away Adams said they would be up for helping us. They’ve been great so far,” said Nicola.

The girls will take off  at 10am on Friday, September 26 from Twomey’s Bar, Abbeydorney and will return to the same spot 24 hours later. That evening they will also host a fundraising night for Recovery Haven in Twomey’s Bar.

“Every four hours we will swap driver, so we all have a chance to rest and maybe get a bit of sleep!” said Nicola.

“It’s a fantastic idea and there is a lot of credit due to them,” said John Ahern, Chairman of the fundraising of Recovery Haven. “It’s great to have young people come to us because it can be quite difficult to people from the ages of 20 and 30 to get involved. The enthusiasm they have is incredible,” added John.

“We had no problem helping them. It’s a very good cause and to be fair, cancer is never that far away from anyone’s house,” said Noel O’Connor from Adams of Tralee.

At the official handover of the car from Adams of Tralee for the ’32 counties in 24 hours’ charity attempt for Recovery Haven, were, from left: John Ahern (Recovery Haven), Grace O’Donnell, Noel O’Connor (Adams of Tralee), Darren Dineen, Killian Young, Linda Murphy, Joanne Coffey, Nicola Baker and Karen McKenna. Photo by Gavin O’Connor.