'It's been very healing': Cork man's 170km walk raises over €19k for parental bereavement charities

Irish Examiner

7 hours ago

Content advisory: this article deals with infant loss and parental bereavement.
Each of us has lost someone we've loved — and felt the impact of their presence, no matter how brief, continue to resonate.
Last week, Cork man Finbarr Buttimer, honouring the life of his daughter Nóra, set out on a journey to raise funds for the organisations that provided he and his fiancée with critical support when it was needed most.
Trekking the full 170 kilometres between Cork city and Dingle, Co Kerry, Buttimer initially sought to raise €2000 for parental bereavement charities Féileacáin and FirstLight.
As of Monday morning, the support and solidarity he's received from the wider community has seen that figure reach nearly ten times that amount, as he continues to document his journey on Instagram.
"This is a walk to Dingle for my daughter, Nóra, who sadly passed away six months ago," Buttimer told the Irish Examiner on Friday.
"She was a healthy baby, but when she was born, there were complications around her birth, and sadly, 12 days later, she passed away.
"Over that six month period, my fiancée Mae and I have had to rebuild our lives, and the two charities that I've decided to raise for played a huge role in that.
"The first one is FirstLight. They're a long-running charity, involved in providing crisis intervention and grief counselling for bereaved parents, at any age or any stage of their grief or of their loss, and they were there to help us with that immediate support, which was vital.
" Féileacáin, then, has been like our community. They're another parental bereavement group who help with advocacy, who help create things like memory boxes, for example.
"We have some mementoes of Nóra at home that Féilecáin have put together - a lock of her hair, and other very nice pieces that we really cherish, and remind us of her.
"They also run a very active five-a-side soccer group for dads, run tournaments around the country, and for me personally, they've been an amazing source of strength and community, because I feel less alone. I feel like I'm with people who understand what the experience is like whenever I'm playing with them.
"They run other groups as well, like pregnancy after loss groups, and support groups for children and families who have lost [loved ones]. There are so many other charities and groups who are also involved in this space, like Bumbleance, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, and LauraLynn."
Finbarr Buttimer, under the Shandon Bells as his walk from Cork to Dingle got underway last week.
For Finbarr, choosing to excur to Dingle from his hometown of Cork City was a matter of fulfilling a personal wish for his daughter.
"It's a place that I would have gone on holidays a lot as a child growing up, and it's a place that I always wanted to bring Nóra, so I'll bring her with me in spirit.
"The reason I'm doing a walk is because I like to do these long-distance walks; in 2022 I did the Via Francigena, the Camino from Canterbury in England to Rome, I did that over three months, then in 2023, I walked from Cork to Rosslare to raise money for Simon Community and the Nasc migrant rights centre in Cork.
"So it felt right that, in order to mark Father's Day, to mark six months since Nóra's passing, that we would hold this event. And the response has been absolutely amazing."
It might not have been Finbarr's first long-distance walk, but any such undertaking brings with it a certain degree of preparation and training, and this journey has been no exception.
"I learned a lot about walking in Ireland from the trip to Rosslare. Having lightweight gear is important, having good shoes is important, and not carrying too much food or water is actually an important thing.
"But then the other thing, obviously, is this isn't a typical walking trail. I did, beforehand, have to do a lot [of prep], I had to look at a lot of maps. I had to look at what roads are quietest, what times would have been quietest.
"Also, I've been camping the whole way, and so at the first night, for example, I was relying on the kindness of strangers to allow me to camp in some farmer's field or in a forest somewhere.
"A lovely couple, and I would like to mention them, Fiona and Brian on the Butter Road. They let me camp in their garden, they said, 'look, it's no problem', and gave me tea and cakes and everything.
"It was so generous of them to see this random man show up, for them to give me that shelter there for the night."
Moving out from the city and into the countryside has brought with it its own set of considerations, but also, helped set a tone for the weekend legs of Finbarr's journey, and helped bring his focus to the purpose of his excursion.
"Once you get outside of the city, there's a lot of industrial and farm traffic. Once I got past Tower and onto the Butter Road and beyond, it became quieter, and as I came up by Bailinagree, one or two cars would pass every hour, then roads would turn into boreens, and boreens would turn into boreens with the green strip down the middle.
"Then it became really idyllic Irish countryside, where I could focus less on having to stay in on the side of the road with cars going past, and I could look up around the landscape. It was like the Boggeragh mountains and Millstreet, and the reeks in the distance, Claragh mountain.
"I think because of the rain earlier in June and the sunshine now, there's a real lushness to the landscape, and a lot of the hedgerows are in bloom. It's just unbelievably idyllic, and it's been very healing.
"From that point of view. It's kind-of like a green bath, or, I don't know what the term is... we're surrounded by nature, and you feel a real sense of peace about you.
"It's just a whole different perspective on on Ireland, really, and on the landscape. And it makes me appreciate it a whole lot more.
"All along the way, I'm thinking of Nóra. The word 'féileacáin' means 'butterflies' [in Irish], and in Irish mythology, butterflies represent the souls of relatives that have passed, who have come to visit and reassure you that everything's okay.
"I'm always seeing butterflies, and robins remind me of her as well, and they're all along the road, so I feel that she's with me, and I know that she'll be with me going forward in the walk and beyond."
Finbarr Buttimer is undertaking a walk from Cork to Dingle to raise funds for Féileacáin and FirstLight, following the passing of his daughter Nora.
By his calculations, Finbarr's walk was set to conclude by Tuesday of this week, and along the way, support has ranged from friends and family, to the charities involved, to a wider community that has been following his updates online and reaching out to show support and solidarity.
"The response has been absolutely incredible. I'm incredibly moved when I think about it, because we see in the donation page the amount that we've raised, just that in and of itself, shows that hundreds of people are thinking about Nóra, they're thinking about me and Mae, and they want to show us their support.
"These are all people we would have loved her to see, and people are reaching out to her by giving, that just means the world to us that so many people are thinking of her because she deserves that.
"Those two causes... when I was in Millstreet the other day, I was in touch with FirstLight, and if the fundraiser were to end then, and half of the money were to go to FirstLight then, I think it was something like fifteen families could be provided for, with crisis intervention and psychology support.
"To know that through Nóra, we can do good in the world is an incredible feeling, and it honours her memory. As parents, that's what our duty is now, going forward, is to is to honour her, and I feel that with this amazing support, we've been able to do that."
The Walk to Dingle for Nóra fundraising page is still open on GoFundMe, staying open until Monday June 30. All funds raised will go directly to Féileacáin and FirstLight, charities that provide assistance to bereaved parents.
Follow the last few legs of Finbarr's journey, as well as post-walk fundraising updates, at his Instagram page: @finbarrformerlybaz
Special thanks to Julia Healy for her assistance with this article.