Fenit with love; locals help to spreadd positiveii messages
THE beauty and tranquility of Fenit hardly needs any more promotion as a place to visit, but a number of Kerry locals have recently taken it upon themselves to help make the area that little bit more special by taking part in what has turned out to be an entirely unplanned but hugely successful positive mental health campaign.
When Tralee’s very own resident mental health campaigner, Colin Aherne, first left his message of ‘Live Life’ written in stones on a patch of grass on the walk to Fenit Lighthouse, he couldn’t have known that this simple gesture would become almost a mini-tourist attraction as locals head out to the area for themselves to help put their own little spin on the message.
“I first left the message there about three weeks ago as I was taking part in the ‘5km A Day’ January challenge in aid of the Donal Walsh Live Life charity and I wanted to just raise a bit of awareness about the foundation; it’s just sort of caught on from there and I think it’s been changed about three of four times since then,” said Colin, talking to The Kerryman on Friday morning.
“It’s been changed from ‘Live Life’ to ‘Family’ to ‘Hope’ to ‘Love’ and I can see it getting changed again in the coming days and weeks because people seem to really appreciate the message; I saw one woman posting on social media that she had come across the message when out walking and she said that she found it very heartwarming,” he continued.
“Fenit is a place that I would go to maybe four to five times a week for a walk and to clear my head so to see people responding postively and enjoying what was just a simple thing left my me, it’s wonderful to see,” he finished.
For anyone that might be interested in leaving their own simple message with the stones, Colin is encouraging as many people as possible to head out to Fenit to see them; they are located just past the diving boards and there is a bench conveniently located right next to this for those who just want to sit and watch the world go by; you won’t regret it.