Tyrone man’s amazing 100 mile 'capitals' walk

Back in April Ronan started the end to his ambitious fundraising campaign- walking from Dublin Mater Hospital to Belfast City Hospital, 100 miles in less than 48 hours.

Ronan has first-hand experience of cancer within his family, and he wanted to raise awareness and funds for the two charities closest to his heart - Macmillan Cancer Support and Charis Cancer Care as well as ‘gifted items’ to Laurel House in Antrim.

With training for this challenge starting in January, Ronan kept everyone up to date on his progress and fundraising plans via social media with photos, videos and news.

He set himself a target of achieving over one million steps and partnered with local businesses to create his very own dedicated jersey design.

In the weeks leading up to the big walk, Ronan even found the time to organise several local fundraisers including a breakfast morning and a flyover, both helping him raise vital funds for both charities whilst also raising awareness of his campaign and the charities work.

Ronan said: “I decided to start this challenge as I always wanted to push myself and my body to place sit has never been before and always wanted to raise money for cancer because my dad had been diagnosed with lymphoma cancer in 2019 and I seen how cruel the disease can be to not only the person affected but their family around them.”

Since March 2020, many charities have been faced with great difficulty and seen most annual fundraising events and efforts postponed and even cancelled. The support from Ronan will help many families and individuals affected by cancer across Northern Ireland, and a time when the services and hope from charities is needed more than ever.

Imelda McGucken MBE, Centre Director at Charis Cancer Care said: “We are absolutely honoured to be a part of this amazing fundraiser, the awareness raised of what we do here at Charis and the support received really does mean the world to all the team here, and our clients. Ronan has made such an outstanding achievement and we are so proud of him- he truly is an inspiration.”

On completing the challenge Ronan said: “Before the challenge I was super excited to get on the go and raising money for amazing charities that helped my family so much through difficult times.

“During the walk it was tougher than I’d imagined, mentally draining to say the least, when out on the road for 12+ Hours and no one to talk to at times was lonely but worth it.

The sense of achievement after the challenge will be hard to beat again in my lifetime a lot of hard work and sweat and even tears went into it! Would not change anything I done because I was so worth it in the end.”

An amazing achievement and more than double the original £10,000 target- congratulations Ronan!

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