€100k raised to help couple rebuild home

A fundraiser to help a couple from Rathowen who lost everything in a house fire shortly after Christmas has reached €100,000.

Pat and Attracta Murray captured the hearts of the nation after a community appeal was sent out to help after their worldly possessions were destroyed by a blaze that broke out in the hotpress of their home on December 29 last, just a day after Pat’s 90th birthday.

Now, less than two months on, plans to rebuild the couple’s home are well advanced. Attracta says it’s down to the goodness of people – near and far – that it’s even possible.

“At the beginning it was hard, everything was coming back to you, it was an awful shock but we’re kind of resigned to it now,” said the 75-year-old.

“The only thing that’s still hard is passing the house as it is – if it was knocked, you wouldn’t have to be seeing it the way it is, and it wouldn’t be as hard.

“We have great neighbours, and one gave us a wee house for the time being, and it’s grand because we have our bit of independence. We were staying with my son and his family and they were brilliant, but it’s nice to have your independence.

“But,” Attracta admits, “there’s nothing like your own home at the end of the day, and things are progressing well in that direction, thank God.”

Attracta said that most of the paperwork is in place, and once everything is in order, they can start the rebuild.

“The contractor was saying that we wouldn’t find the blocklaying and roof going on, but the inside work is a bit more tedious, the floors and everything. He thinks that once they get construction started, it would be finished in around six or seven months.

“Hopefully, you never know, we might be back in it for Christmas.

“That would be something to look forward to. I hope and pray that we will, it would be brilliant if we were.”

She says the demolition of what remains of their former home will be the next thing, and they are currently waiting on permission to do that.

“It has to be done carefully because it’s a semi-detached house, and that’s what we were worried about when it was on fire – that it would get into the house next door, but lucky enough it didn’t.

“The firemen were great, and they saw to that end of it first to make sure it wouldn’t go that far.

“The firemen got there very quickly, although when you’re standing there watching it, you’d think it was an age, but they were there within 10 minutes.

“They were brilliant – very, very good, and the neighbours couldn’t have been better, and our own family, I don’t know how they got to us so fast.”

Attracta said that a local lady, Emily Lloyd, started the fundraiser on GoFundMe, and it has now reached €96,878.

“That young Emily Lloyd girl was so good, she started the whole thing going, and then Cyrian Connaughton, Jeremiah Nally, and Thomas Duck, they continued it on then.

“Everyone is so generous, we can’t believe it. And people are still coming with stuff. We had no clothes, we had nothing, it was shocking really.”

Remembering the horrific moment when the fire took hold, Attracta says she returned into the house to try to save what possessions she could.

“I went back in and I shouldn’t have, I thought I’d never get back out. The roof started coming in on me then, and I couldn’t see where I was going.

“It’s an instinct you have to go back in to try and save something. I had just bundled on my jacket which had my purse in it, and only for that I would have had nothing. There was feck all in the purse but at the same time, I got it out.

“I went back in because Pat’s good clothes were hanging on the wardrobe door, and I thought I’d go back in and get some of his things but sure I didn’t even get near the wardrobe. They had to keep calling to me because I couldn’t see where I was going with the smoke.

“Oh it was shocking! It was an awful sensation and I hope to God you never experience it because it’s something I’d never like anyone to have to go through. You hear about it happening to others, but you have to experience it to know how awful it is.”

Since the fire, both she and Pat have received support from far and wide.

“All we can do is thank everybody that was so good to us from all over – I got letters and Mass cards from Spain, Australia and England. People are so thoughtful and so good, I can’t believe it.

“A lady down in Tipperary wrote me a lovely letter, she’s an old-age pensioner. A lot of them don’t give you an address and you can’t write back to them to thank them. Anyone I can, I send out thank-you cards.

“All I can do is pray for them, and if I could ever help anyone, I would. Right throughout our lifetime our door was always open, and if we could ever help anyone, we did.

“If you were in our house at dinnertime, you’d get dinner, you’d never leave our house without a cup of tea or a sandwich at least.

"Everyone was always welcome at the door, and please God when we have the new house built, everyone is always welcome to come to our door at any time and we’ll help them in the best way we can. I know we’re both old, but at the same time we might be able to do something to help.”

Attracta says her strong sense of faith, coupled with the goodness of others, have kept her going.

“That’s the only thing that’s sticking to us is our faith. You need faith, and we would be lost without it, I don’t know how anybody can manage without it. You have to have belief or if you don’t, you’re lost.

“Faith and people being so good, calling to see how we were, to see if we were alright, calling with bags of clothes, bed linen and everything.

“God bless everyone in this world today, they are outstanding. It’s only when something like this happens that you realise how many good people are out there.

“And that’s the only way you can get by in this world is through helping each other. When I was young, nobody had anything, so everyone helped each other, every neighbour was a neighbour, you did what you could for one another. That was the way we were brought up.”

Attracta says that thankfully, both she and Pat are in good health and they hope and pray to be in their new home in time for Christmas.

“I hope we live so that we’ll be able to enjoy a few years in our new dwelling anyway when it goes up, that’s all I pray for.”