Emotional Danny Tim hails success of ‘gathering’ day
HE’S an icon in Kerry, and further afield, so little wonder that the O’Sullivan gathering Danny Tim O’Sullivan and family hosted at the old family homestead in Glenbeigh last week attracted some 1,000 people to Couneraugh.
Danny Tim is held in the highest of regard. A powerful construction employer in the UK following his move across the Irish Sea in the early 1970s, it’s fair to say he has helped thousands of people, many of them from Kerry, to find success of their own in the UK. This respect was borne out on Thursday as many hundreds of people made their way to a grand marquee in Glenbeigh for the gathering.
“I wanted to bring friends and family together from the UK, the US, and right here in Kerry,” the Kerry Association in London Chairman said this week of an event at which he was joined by his wife, Sheila; sons; daughters; grandchildren; and many, many more friends and relations. “We were originally going to do it last year, and it was planned with a good while, but we had to put it on hold after I had a brain aneurysm last year.”
Reflecting on the events of recent times, Danny Tim said he became very emotional on the day as he thought back on that aneurysm, which he suffered while training for the Ring of Kerry Charity Cycle.
He spent some four months in hospital, during which time there was no shortage of Masses and Prayers said in Kerry and further afield with Danny Tim in mind.
“We had a lovely day, with Mass in the afternoon celebrated by Fr Larry Kelly, and brilliant music then by PJ Murrihy, Nealie O’Donnell, and Mike Jack Cronin. But I felt very emotional when I thought back on the aneurysm” he said. “I was given a five per cent chance of survival, and I’ll never be able to thank people enough for those Masses and keeping me in their Prayers.
“It was lovely to have all those friends and relations gathered together, and it was a way as well to say ‘ Thank you’ for their support. I’m very grateful.”