DID you hear the one about the shopkeeper, the fireman and the accountant who went to Barcelona?
Well it’s a story about three brothers who are about to take on one of the toughest endurance tests to raise funds for adult respite care and the work of the Daughters of Charity in Limerick.
The Tracey brothers, Michael (the shopkeeper), Declan (the fireman) and Kieran (the accountant), who all hail from Nicholas Street, will undertake the Barcelona Ironman challenge on Sunday, October 2.
And to counter the effects of cutbacks for adult respite care, the brothers will swim for 3.8km, cycle for 180km and then to finish, they’ll just run a marathon.
Their sister Miriam described them as “daft” for undertaking the challenge, but it is family bonds that brings them to Spain as they are there to support their nephew and the Daughters of Charity organisation as a whole. The charity provides respite for intellectually disabled adults at their residential bungalow.
Adult respite care has been cut to just two nights a month and with a bungalow unit that can only accommodate six residents at a time, the service is in desperate need of funds.
Martin O’Brien who, along with Miriam Tracey, is one of the founders of the Adult Respite Representative Group, is highlighting the need for an increase in financial support for adult respite care.
“There are nearly 100 registered users of the service which can hardly cope with less than half of that number. We need to restore the levels of respite care to pre- 2008 levels,” he says.
“Two more bungalows at the Daughter’s of Charity centre are needed but one unit costs €500,000 to build and a further €500,000 to staff it for 12 months so it’s a massive financial challenge.
All money raised by the Tracey brothers’ Ironman challenge will go directly to the charity.
As for the men themselves, Declan, who is an experienced triathlete, told the Limerick Post that sibling rivalry might be laid to rest for their trip to Barcelona as the pain of the tasks at hand will be enough for his brothers to cope with. This will be Michael and Kieran’s first ironman challenge and they are hoping that their gruelling six-day a week training sessions will get them over the finish line.
Sponsorship cards are available from the Daughters of Charity and the brothers’ progress can be followed on facebook by searching for BarcelonaIronmanFundraiser.
