When Matthew O’Flaherty wades into the cool waters of Killary Harbour this afternoon to swim its length, he won’t be thinking too much about the 13km ahead of him, or about how much warmer it might be on a nearby beach.
In his mind’s eye will be an image of his baby nephew Ryan Brennan. The seven-month-old has a rare chromosomal condition called Mosaic Trisomy 9. He cannot swallow and has regular epileptic seizures.
Most people are born with 46 chromosomes but those diagnosed with Mosaic Trisomy 9 have 47 in some of the body’s cells. The effects can vary quite widely but some 80 per cent encounter feeding difficulties, along with other physical challenges, and development can be delayed.
"Ryan is doing well, but he needs the constant care of his parents, Jackie and Johnny, in Clontibret, Co Monaghan, " O'Flaherty says.
“His feeding has to be monitored to ensure he doesn’t choke and he is due to have surgery shortly in Temple Street children’s hospital in Dublin to relieve pressure on his brain,” he explains.
Support has recently been provided by the Health Service Executive (HSE), but Ryan's parents, who also have a seven-year-old daughter, have been coping for much of the past seven months on their own.
O'Flaherty, an electrician with Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT), hopes to raise funds to pay for back-up care.
Red Cross
“I’ve swum the fjord for the past three years for the local Irish Red Cross ambulance which serves a large rural area between Leenane and Maam in Connemara,” he says. “This time I knew I had to do it for Ryan. Jackie, who is my sister-in-law, had to give up her job as a care assistant and that’s a financial pressure.”
Ryan’s father has also taken days off work to accompany his son on many visits to hospital.
Salthill promenade
The 34-year-old’s training ground has been
Galway
Bay and he has covered distances of 4-5km each evening after work for the past few months off the Salthill promenade.
Water temperatures in Killary – Ireland’s only fjord – will be several degrees cooler however as it is fed by mountain streams, but there are still jellyfish to watch out for en route between Rossroe pier and Leenane.
The Galway man has invited supporters to swim, run or walk the length of the fjord with him. “I haven’t got any swimmers, but I have about 35 to 40 walkers and runners who have a slightly longer distance of 15km on land,” he says.
In return for his support over the years, the Irish Red Cross is providing soup and sandwiches at the finish.
The swimmer hopes to break his own record, set last year, of three-and-a-half hours. “It’s your shoulders that start hurting the most,” he says. “I’ll just keep thinking of Ryan and that will keep me quiet.”
For donations, Matthew can be contacted at matthewoflaherty @hotmail.com or by phone on (087)7448107
