I am proud to support the following organisations...


I'm proud to be a Patron of IASBAH and hope you take some time out to check out the Associaton's web pages. IASBAH was founded in 1968 and is involved in the care, welfare, interests, treatment, education, advancement and rehabilition of people born with Spina Bifida or Hydrocephalus.

It's a national orgnisation with local branches run (as so many of our organisations are) by volunteers who do tremendous work to improve the quality of life and opportunities for anyone who comes to them. There's a great buzz of help and self-help in every location and plenty of projects and events regularly taking place.

For more information on IASBAH, click here

Bóthar's mission is to 'help people to help themselves' which I think is really important. Their way of doing this is by providing a range of farm animals to individual families some of the poorest nations in the world. This is a practical a sustaining way of providing help and it's what attracted me to the Bóthar projects.

When a family gets an animal they are given the knowledge and skills to manage it. Each family taking part in a Bóthar project must formally agree to pass on the first female offspring born to their animal to another family in the community. Supporting Bothár by buying an animal, or a share in an animal, is a very exciting way of helping those who need it most.

Click here to learn more about Bóthar or to buy an animal for a third-world family.

I have always felt lucky to have grown up in a loving family and in a country where there was enough water to drink and an education system for everyone. And though things may not always be perfect in Ireland we are still a priveleged nation.

I became a Unicef Global parent in support of their policy that for every child there should be: Health, Education, Equality and Protection. If you don't have a good start in life, you are always at a disadvantage. It saddens me to think that there are so many children in the world without the advantages that I took for granted.

Click here learn more about Unicef's work or to make a donation.

A few years ago I had corrective laser eye treatment which resulted in me not having to wear glasses or contact lenses after a lifetime of always wearing them. I was completely stunned to be able to see clearly, without lenses, for the first time in years. I got to thinking about sight problems in developing countries and realised that many of those problems are either preventable or curable. In fact 75% of world blindness is avoidable.
At the controls of the Orbis Flying Eye hospital
Nearly 37 million people are blind and 28 million of those need not be. 90% of them live in developing countries. During that time I discovered the work of Orbis. Over the past 22 years they have trained over 70,00 local medical professionals in 76 countries who have given 17.5 million people back their sight. I love the idea of the Flying Eye Hospital bringing techniques and training to countries that need it most. But most of all I love knowing that people who were living in darkness or in a world of blurred vision can see again.

Click here to learn more about Orbis or to make a donation.

When your day job involves a lot of sitting around, it's good to have something active to do in the evenings and I've played badminton since my late teens. A few years ago I was asked to do some voluntary work as the Treasurer of the BUI and so at the moment that's my involvement with the administrative side of things. The funding of sport in Ireland is light years behind our European counterparts and our athletes do incredibly well to achieve what they do, given that many other countries put a much higher emphasis on the importance of sport than we do.

Perhaps the growing concern with obseity, poor food choices and lack of exercise might see us getting more money as there's no doubt that active participation in a sport is great for everyone's health! Badminton is the fastest racquet sport in the world and we're one of the few sports with an almost equal male-female ratio of players. We have some promising Olympic atheletes for the future too. For most of us, though, it's a chance to socialise, be active and have a good time.

If you're interested in taking up this exciting sport, click here for the BUI website and more information.