Hannah’s walk plagued by weather

TO say Seán Moriarty and John Fahy had to brave difficult conditions over the Slieve Mish range at the weekend would be the height of understatement.

The Annascaul duo’s walk in aid of Hannah Falvey was never destined to be a handy jaunt, but horrendous weather conditions ramped up the difficulty of the task and literally added hours to their journey.

Hannah was born in 2013, and was diagnosed with the rare neurodevelopmental disorder Rett Syndrome in May of last year.

She will never be able to talk, but the family decided to invest in a Tobii screen, which can help her communicate through detecting her eye movements.

A gofundme page, “A Voice for Hannah”, has been raising funds for the screen and Hannah’s future needs. But the mountain walk undertaken by two friends of the Falvey family has always been noted as the main fundraising effort for the little girl, and the pair faced up to Slieve Mish’s obstacles on Friday.

“We started over on the Castlemaine side of the range on Friday evening at the time we’d planned.

We were hoping to reach Brandon Point by midday on Saturday, but the weather ended any chance of getting there as early as that”, Seán said.

“When we landed over in Castlemaine the weather wasn’t that bad, but we’d only ascended a small bit when the rain gear had to go on.

“We had a fair idea then what was ahead of us.

“Every few steps we seemed to be landing in deep puddles of water. Between hailstones hammering against us and the strong winds, the weather over the first eight hours was desperate.”

At more than one point along the route, Seán worried the conditions would force them to leave the challenge behind them.

“The night section was particularly bad. The fog was terrible was like walking through a wall of water, and our torches were no good to us. All they did was emphasise the mist.”

“By the top of Mám we decided to take a detour and drop down onto the Bog Road. We hoped to go over by Annascaul lake, but the fog was no better there, so we kept on the Bog road route through Lios Póil before we got back on track on Saturday.”

“That added about 12 kilometres to our journey. All we had was hiking boots and they’re far too heavy for road walking so our feet were put to the test.

“But thankfully the weather improved some bit by the end, and we eventually made it to Brandon on Saturday evening – seven hours late”

John and Seán were greeted by family at the end of their trek, before a fundraising Barbeque at Hanafin’s bar in Annascaul offered them the warmest of receptions:

“We met some of Hannah’s family over there”, Seán explains.

“The walk is all about Hannah, and meeting members of the Falvey family was lovely – although it didn’t take much convincing for us to leave that night so we could hit the hay.

“We’re feeling good now after a few sore days, and I’ve no doubt the people of west Kerry and beyond have been very generous to Hannah’s cause.”