By Claire Corrigan
The book launch of the late Mary Remond’s book ‘Marlena, the Fairy Princess’ is set to be a spectacular event with special guest, chat show host, Miriam O’ Callaghan, due to do the honours.
Mullingar Town Band will be providing the entertainment and there will be a host of locals in attendance as well as members of Ms. Remonds’ family.
Nine-times published Mullingar children’s book writer Dolores Keaveney met Mary Redmond, who founded the Irish Hospice Foundation, at the Craft and Design Fair in the RDS two years ago and was immediately struck by her. “She stood in front of my stand and I remember thinking she was angelic-looking. She was very tall with silvery hair and very beautiful. She looked at my art and said that she’d love me to illustrate her book.”
Although Ms. Keaveney had never illustrated for anybody before, when she read Ms Redmond’s story, a novel for children aged seven to 11 about fairies, she decided she would make an exception. “I met her and we clicked. It only took me six weeks to complete the book and she never asked me to change a single thing.”
Ms. Redmond founded the Irish Hospice Foundation in the 1980s when her father became terminally ill. In 2008, she also became unwell and it was discovered that she had breast cancer. During a catch-up, Mr. Keaveney noticed that her friend looked sick, however Ms. Redmond chose not disclose how serious her condition was. “About two weeks before she passed away I saw her and I could see that she wasn’t well. She died on 6 April 2015. This whole book launch is about commemorating her.”
When Ms. Redmond’s son, Patrick contacted Ms. Keaveney about getting the book out to the public, she felt that it was appropriate that the North Westmeath Hospice should be somehow involved and contacted Detty Cornally, who is a member of the fundraising committee and committee chairperson, Veronica Larkin.
Ms. Larkin told Topic, “Detty and Dolores are lifelong friends and they came to me with the book and asked what we could do about launching it. Alastair Graham from All Saints’ kindly gave us the use the use of the church building as a venue and also suggested that we get someone very significant to launch it. We wrote down a lot of names on a list and one Saturday night when Miriam O’ Callaghan was on TV I decided to send her an email and see if she would be interested in attending the event. The next day, she emailed back saying she would be delighted to come. She didn’t ask for any fuss and has been a treasure to deal with.”
Ms. Larkin said that the committee have been working hard to ensure that the launch will be a special event. “All the members of the hospice committee are getting together to ensure the invitations are sent out and that we get a lot of local people in and hopefully sell as many books as we can to support hospice. We have been gifted 800 copies of the book by her son, Patrick and they are €10 each.”
Ms. Larkin said that while north Westmeath was lucky to have such a great hospice homecare team, she hoped to build on the existing services in the coming years. “We don’t have 24/7 services and we don’t have a hospice building. We need to have a level 3 hospice facility of 16-24 beds built in the region for people reaching end of life. Hospice is for everybody who is coming to end of life, whether it’s dementia, chronic lung disease, heart disease or cancer.”
For committee member Detty Cornally the time that she donates to helping the hospice has a very personal significance. When Ms. Cornally’s husband, Rob, passed away a number of years ago, the hospice provided much needed support to her and her family during his final days. “When Rob used the service for the three or four nights he was at home I couldn’t praise the hospice enough. They would come in during the evening time and you just felt so relieved that there was someone there to help you.” The event will take place at All Saints’ Church at 6pm on 18 November.
