Community spirit the vital ingredient for success
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Dolores Stafford (left) and Josephine Segarty, volunteers since the beginning cutting the ribbon to start the 2024 challenge.Image 2 of 16
Ciara Geraghty and her family on their stand at Ballinacree. Ciara provide home cooked goodies, fruit, tea and coffee for the walkers every year.Image 3 of 16
Cousins from the Traynor family at Greeve, County Cavan, out to support and feed the walkers.Image 4 of 16
The Brady family have expanded their offering over the years of the JFK challenge, and now provide a full spread, including tables and places to sit and rest tired legs in their shed. Their house at Pollakeel, Mount Nugent is at 22 and a half miles and is an official point where names of participants are recorded.Image 5 of 16
Joe O’Reilly from Mount Nugent took a short break with Kit and Marie Lee, Catherine Gilligan and Margaret Galligan.Image 6 of 16
The Dobson family had a lovely welcome for the walkers, including Val Reilly (right) near Fore.Image 7 of 16
Fore village was at the 38-mile mark, and a place where soup, sandwiches, wraps and other sustaining food was on offer. Among those helping were Catherine O’Farrell, Archerstown, Michael Scully, Ballyfore, Tess Scully, Dromone, and Maggie Caffrey, Oldcastle, here with Sandra Coote, Virginia (second from left) who was doing the walk.Image 8 of 16
In Fore village were Sarah McNamee, Moylagh, Ruth O’Dowd, Ballinacree, Hannah Brady, Ballyjamesduff, Fiona Mulvaney, Virginia, Nuala Cullen, Ballyjamesduff, Deirdre Coyle, Tullamore, and Mattie O’Donnell, Trim.Image 9 of 16
Darren, Bailey, Frankie, and Bella Fagan and Robert Murtagh with their father watching the walkers go by at Cummerstown, Collinstown.Image 10 of 16
Hard at work cooking burgers for the hungry walkers at Doyne’s of Glenidan were Mags Carter, Theresa McCann, Ita McDermott, Valerie Buckle and Martha Lynch.Image 11 of 16
Brother and sister Kenneth and Phyllis McDonnell from Mount Nugent have done the JFK challenge several times. Kenneth has started all of them, and finished his eighth on Saturday; Phyllis has “done most of them, and finished six or seven”.Image 12 of 16
This sign three miles from the finish, at Loughbawn, was eye-catching! Offering the tea and (a place to) pee were Dympna Hand, Una Reilly, Aoife Hand and Orlaith Hand.Image 13 of 16
Hughie Gibney at the finish line with David Jones, newly elected member of Westmeath County Council, and volunteer on the JFK committee.Image 14 of 16
Waiting for the off on Saturday morning.Image 15 of 16
Waiting for the off on Saturday morning.Image 16 of 16
Elvis (Patsy Boylan) wasn’t in the building, but he was on the road!The little girl who was enthusiastically offering slices of orange and other refreshments at the Dobson family stand near Fore was the perfect example of the community spirit that is at the core of the Moylagh JFK 50 Mile Challenge.
A delightful child, who had her teddy bear as well as family members for company, she was one of the scores of people who had food and drink stands at their gates for the walkers to pause and enjoy as they made their way around the 50 miles through Westmeath, Meath and Cavan.
Those people collectively make up what is the vital ingredient in the event, and the thread that has run through it since the first one in 2012 – and that is community spirit.
It is evident in the volunteers who go out to mark the route weeks in advance, in the people preparing sandwiches and other snacks the day before and getting them out to where they’re needed on the route, in the scores of marshals on the many junctions, and in the people on the committee who guide the event and ensure a successful completion each year.
They combine in a magic mix that results in one of the most inspiring events on the calendar. It’s also one of the most challenging, as this writer can confirm. We started walking from the Moylagh GAA centre at 6am on Saturday, and walked for, in my case 15 hours and 11 minutes, to the finish in Dromone.
Along the way, we passed by or through Lough Crew, Oldcastle, Dromone, Ballinacree, Mullaghmeen Forest, Lough Sheelin, Fore, Lough Lene, and Glenidan, and back to Dromone for the finish, and everywhere along the way were smiling, welcoming, generous families, marshals and other volunteers. At the finish line in Dromone, there were dozens of those same volunteers, family members of participants and other locals clapping as weary walkers made it home, some of them – in feats of amazing endurance – in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Johnny Guirke, TD, chairperson of the organising committee, said there were 800 starters this year and 245 did the full 50 miles (some people set out to complete certain distances, such as the first loop to Dromone, or to the halfway point at Ross, County Meath).
He expects the funds raised this year, for the Irish Cancer Society, LARCC, and palliative care, will be up on previous years, and when the final figure is calculated, the cheques will be presented at an event in Dromone on July 13.
The event raised more than €1.2m in the 12 years up to 2023.
“We run it on a shoestring budget, we don’t waste a penny, the cancer services get every penny we raise,” said Deputy Guirke.
“I would just like to thank everybody for coming, thank everybody along the route – they make it such a community event by putting out food and helping out – the volunteers – we could have 100 people helping on the day. Some would be there from four o’clock in the morning to three o’clock the next morning, and the night before there are all the people making food and getting it ready to move to different points the next morning.
“I just want to thank everybody, the people for showing up, and who make it a community, all the volunteers, and I think the most important thing is that community spirit.”
David Jones, the newly elected councillor in Delvin, who is a volunteer on the committee, was busy in the morning at the start and again at the finish taking photos and videos and encouraging everyone. He said: “It was brilliant to see so many people, from all over Ireland, taking part and especially the local people, from Delvin, Clonmellon, and all around Westmeath. This challenge is a good reflection of what real community spirit is. Without the volunteers, it wouldn’t happen. They raise huge funds for the three cancer charities, and we need to recognise the volunteers who put in so much time to make these events possible.”
What neither of those committee members was in a position to say is that the Moylagh JFK 50 Mile Challenge is a seriously well organised event. From the registration before the 6am start to the well marked route and the superior quality toilets; from the quality food at the designated feeding stations (we had been hearing all day about the burgers waiting for us at Doyne’s of Glenidan) as well as at the stops provided by families, to the way participants’ names were recorded at several points along the way, and the presentation of medals and certs at the finish, everything was perfectly well judged and perfectly run.
The whole event is a credit to the hard work of those communities in Westmeath, Meath and Cavan.