Kerry Hospice Foundation fundraiser and campaigner Ted Moynihan is this year’s Kerry Person of the Year.
The award is made annually by the Kerry Association in Dublin and past winners include John B Keane, Dick Spring, Jimmy Deenihan and Mick O’Connell.
Mr Moynihan’s selection will be formally announced by the association’s chairperson Leesha Duffy at a reception in Iveagh House in Dublin on Thursday evening.
Ms Duffy said Mr Moynihan was receiving the award in recognition of the major contribution he had made to the foundation over the past 20 years.
“His contribution has been selfless and is a remarkable example of community spirit and social concern,” added Ms Duffy.
Palliative care
Mr Moynihan, a native of Blennerville, near Tralee, helped organise the first fundraising event for the foundation in 1990, which was a sponsored walk along the Kerry way in the Iveragh Peninsula.
A palliative care facility was opened in Kerry in 2007 and, last year, the sod was turned for a €6.2 million in-patient unit in the Day Care Centre in Tralee.
Ms Duffy also announced that the local community development company in Dromod, near Waterville, won the association’s annual Laochra Chiarraí award which recognises exemplary leadership at community level.
It provides services for the elderly, childcare, language classes and has set up enterprise units.
Ms Duffy said the company had changed the area in a positive way through voluntary community work.
