Breast Cancer Dragonboat Club
With some Covid-19 restrictions in Ireland lifted from the 18th May 2020, some of our local members were able to start paddling in our O1's. An O1 is a racing kayak with an outrigger. As it's a single boat we can train individually keeping physically distant. With further lifting of restrictions in June, we are now also training in small groups on our paddle machines.
Virtual training continues this Saturday with one of our helms, Tara Byrne. Tara, a Pilates instructor, has been bringing us together every Saturday since early April. With the current Covid-19 restrictions, it will be another few months before we train together in our dragon boats. Umtil then it's great to virtually keep in touch and to keep training together. Most Saturday mornings Tara is in her garden, so we have the added pleasure of having birdsong in the background as we stretch!
Margaret Mulcahy was named as the first recipient of the Spirit of Plurabelle Award. The award was donated to the club by Eamon and Oscar Doyle in memory of their wife and mother, Fiona Tiernan. It is to be awarded every year to the member who in the year has best embodied the spirit of the Plurabelles. Nominated by her fellow team members, Margaret was presented with the beautiful award by Oscar. A member from the early days of the club, Margaret is a former chairperson, team manager and the clubs most experienced helm. She negotiated the planning, building and fit-out of our new clubhouse and as Chair ran the club with her instinctive sense of fairness and a deep understanding of what the club is about and what the club means to each individual member.
Here is some of what Margaret said in accepting the award.
'We have our awards for winning races, but the Spirit of Plurabelle Award is so important. We have something so precious and important here. So wonderful, the friendship, the support regardless of age, where we live, anything. It is so, so precious and if there is anything I want to say today, it is we need to guard that. It is like a tender plant we need to nurture. Fiona was very strong in all aspects of the club from the support and to the sport, particularly when she became too ill to paddle she was still here supporting us all.
The biggest challenge in the club, is in keeping the very diverse interests going and keeping everybody happy. Our friendship and our support for each other is the big thing that we have and we need to guard and mind it. I want to just say, be tolerant, be kind and continually be good to each other and to keep this precious, precious thing we have. We all know we have a wonderful club here and we need to keep it going. We are so lucky. I am humbled and honoured to be the first recipient of this award. '
Well, they survived it… in fact, they did a lot more than survive it! The Plurabelles were the fastest all-female team at the 10K Dragon Run in Carlow on Sunday, 24th March 2019. How’s that for an amazing result?! The Plurabelles came in 4th overall, with a time of 1 hour 46 seconds. The composite team (including many Plurabelles) came in 5th. Well done ladies; you did great! Hopefully the wonderful memories from the day (and the satisfaction of paddling a whopping 10 kilometres) will offset any aches and exhaustion!
Thank you to all concerned. It was a wonderful day.
Original Sponsors:
Breast Cancer Ireland
HSE Health Promotion Unit Dublin North East
Charities Regulator 20079857
CHY 20152
Company Number 496744