The first family event of 2012 took place on 25th March at Barretstown Estate. This event brought 35 families together on a beuatiful spring day. There were plenty of activities on offer including fishing, archery, horseriding, Zip Line, Cupcake decorating, Arts & Crafts and faceppainting... Thank you to all our families for supporting this event and to all the fantastic Volunteers at Barretstown who made this day so special for Anam Cara.
Michael McEnery & John Mullins Chairman Anam Cara
We would like to express our deep appreciation to the Annabel McEnery Foundation for their generous donation to Anam Cara which was presented to John Mullins, Chairman of Anam Cara in March 2012.
Anam Cara Northern Ireland holds monthly support meetings at the Armagh City Hotel. These meetings are open to all bereaved parents and take place on the last Wednesday of each month. Please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Anam Cara Launches Balloon to Remember Campaign encouraging the public to buy an Anam Cara pin to show support for those who have experienced such a bereavement.
Pictured are children , Susie Kelly(4), Sophie Farrell(8) , Matthew Farrell(3) and David Burke(5) with Miriam O Callaghan who were helping Anam Cara, the national support group for bereaved parents,launch its annual Balloon to Remember campaign to raise awareness and much needed funds to develop and extend its’ services to bereaved parents throughout Ireland.
Through the sale of their Anam Cara Balloon to Remember pins in stores nationwide or online at www.anamcara.ie, Anam Cara will continue to help thousands of parents and families with the devastating death of their child.Launched in 2008, Anam Cara is a national voluntary support organisation set up by parents who have themselves experienced the loss of a child. Their aim is to provide support and understanding through their online forum, parent-to-parent meetings, professional talks and family events all of which are provided free of charge to those who have experienced the death of a son or daughter, regardless of that child’s age or the circumstances of death
Half way through the afternoon a little Remembrance Service took place with the
planting of a Copper Beech tree in memory of our children no longer with us.. Although
a poignant part of the day, it is also a special time for us to remember , as each of us
placed a stone at the base of the tree in memory of our son or daughter brother or sister.
Our next family event will be on Saturday 10th December when Anam Cara will hold
their Celebration of Life event. We will have more details about this event closer to the
date.
Anam Cara's 2012 National Awareness Campaign
A Balloon to Remember, in memory of Irish Children who have passed away, will take place this year on Friday 2nd November. More information about this years campaign will be on this website soon. Miriam O Callaghan will be our ambassador for this years campaign.
This poignant awareness campaign "A Balloon to Remember", is an initiative created by Anam Cara in memory of every child, young or old, who has passed away in Ireland. The campaign aims to highlight the invaluable and unique support Anam Cara provides bereaved parents as it is parents who have themselves lost a child running almost every aspect of the organisation.
When it occurs, the effect of the death of a child is felt far and wide in every community in Ireland. In a recent survey conducted on behalf Anam Cara, 58% of Irish people directly know a family that has experienced the unimaginable loss of a child* highlighting the ever growing need for support services in this area. Anam Cara is a national voluntary support group set up by bereaved parents who provide support, understanding and a forum for families who have experienced the death of a child, regardless of age or circumstance of death.
Anam Cara Ambassador, Miriam O’Callaghan has seen firsthand the devastation the death of a family member can have on parents and siblings having lost her sister Anne in 1995,
“Anam Cara provides an invaluable service to anyone who has suffered the loss of a child or a sibling. Following the initial days and months after the tragic death of a family member, when support unintentionally slips away due to everyday life taking over for others, bereaved families still feel the pain and loss each and every morning they wake up and remember. Anam Cara is the service that remembers with you, while also providing a support network to help you through the tough times.”
Sharon Vard, CEO of Anam Cara and bereaved parent noted
“Currently the families of those who have been ill usually hear about Anam Cara through their hospital. For those whose child dies a sudden death there is often no formal support and they don’t know that Anam Cara is there. With this campaign we aim to raise awareness amongst the general public of Anam Cara and how we can support parents in their grief.
Every year in Ireland approximately 1,950 families lose a son or daughter. This figure and the huge response we have received in just a couple of years clearly demonstrates the need for our service. An additional aim of the campaign is to raise funds to continue our growth throughout Ireland so that all these families can benefit from our services locally
If you would like to sponsor and dedicate a balloon click here...
One man, one bike, 1,000 miles and 52 coastguard stations to raise funds and awareness for national organisation, Anam Cara.
After 12 days in the saddle, Stephen Mullally, a volunteer Irish Coast Guard was welcomed home to Tramore by his daughter Freya, his wife, family and friends of Anam Cara on Sunday, Mothers Day, 3rd April after 12 tough days of cycling around Ireland, visiting 52 Irish Coast Guard Stations en route.
Stephen undertook this inspiring challenge in aid of the Irish charity Anam Cara www.anamcara.ie, which offers bereavement services and support to families following the death of a child.
The 1,000 mile cycle took him up the east coast, through Wexford, Wicklow, Dublin and Louth. From there he travelled by bus across to Greencastle in Donegal and cycled along the coasts of Donegal, Sligo, Mayo, Galway, Clare, Kerry and Cork.
“Anam Cara is a charity that strikes a chord with me, since I experienced the death of three of my siblings when I was a child. Had Anam Cara existed at the time of their deaths, my family would have been able to avail of its support over the years. I am glad to be able to help an organisation which now offers such a valuable and necessary service to bereaved parents and families”, commented Stephen.
Anam Cara was the inspiration of a few parents who met after the tragic death of their own children and who unintentionally became each other’s support as they came to terms with the reality of their loss. Since its inception in 2008, Anam Cara has helped and supported over 1500 parents with its various services.
Sharon Vard also commented “We are grateful to Stephen and delighted that he has completed this tough challenge in support of Anam Cara. Based on our own experiences, we can identify so easily with the ‘Beacon of Hope’ symbolism, as a beacon shows the way and offers hope to those who need it. At Anam Cara, we understand, through personal experience, that after the death of a child, the early days are filled with sadness, pain and despair. However, with the right support services, together with the love and support of extended family and friends, families will and can find ways to cope and survive. Anam Cara offers families that ‘Beacon of Hope’.
Stephen thanked the cyclists who joined in and accompanied him through some of the stages for their support and hoped they enjoyed the views of our spectacular coast line as much as he did.
Anam Cara and Stephen would especially like to relay their gratitude to the Hoteliers along the route who very kindly and generously gave Stephen and his driver Keith a warm bed and a hot meal each day. Along his route Stephen stayed in the Ashdown Park Hotel, Wexford, the Deerpark in Dublin, the Caiseal Mara Hotel and the Downings Beach Hotel in Donegal, the Downhill Hotel in Ballina, the Castlecourt Hotel in Westport, the Imperial Hotel in Lisdoonvarna, Dingle Benners Hotel in Dingle, the Maritime Hotel in Bantry, Actons Hotel in Kinsale and the Walter Raleigh Hotel in Youghal.
On a warm, fine Sunday in August a group of scouts, thier families and friends set off on a sponsored walk to raise funds for Anam Cara.
This walk was organised by 4 young scouts from Mountrath in co Laois and was followed by a family fun day with barbeque, bouncy castles, face painting and music. A huge well doen to all!!!!
The day was organised down to the last little detail by Ruth Delaney, Aisling Page, Georgia Sheils, and Robert Martin.
.They raised a total of €1002.77 for Anam Cara and also helped to raise awareness of Anam Cara in thier local community
A huge well done to all!!!!
“The sibling relationship is more complex than nearly any other, a mixture of affection and ambivalence, camaraderie and competition. Aside from our parents, there is no one else on earth who knows us better, because like our parents, our brothers and sisters have been beside us from the very beginning. Unlike our parents, however, our siblings are people we assume will be part of our lives for the rest of our lives. In terms of the span of time, the intimacy, and the shared experience of childhood, no other relationship rivals the connection we have with our adult brothers or sisters”
(Ref. TJ Wray Adult Sibling Loss)
Losing a sibling at any stage of the life span can be one of the most devastating events we will ever have to face and although this loss may be shared with other family members the manner in which it is supported may vary greatly. While Parents partners and children of the deceased may be prioritised as mourners and receive acknowledgement and social support, bereaved siblings may experience a shortfall in the social support available to them. Very often their unique loss goes unacknowledged and undifferentiated from the experience of the family as a whole.
At the same time as they are experiencing these deficits in social support, demands may be made on bereaved siblings to put aside their own grief in order to be available to and support their parents and surviving siblings. Bereaved siblings may wish to absorb their parents burdens even though they may be iillequipped to deal with the extent of the demands placed on them. The reversal of role involved in being required to buttress your own parents against the impact of the loss of their child can be overwhelming. They can often find themselves called on to fill the shoes of their dead sibling in the family script. The consequent disruption of identity can be extremely damaging and has the capacity to pose serious challenges to the individuals self concept. These disruptions combined with the shattering of any assumptions beliefs or expectations of what their life was and would be, can contribute to an altered worldview. Overall their loss can be described as disenfranchised. (Disenfranchised Grief; which in simple terms means that society fails to classify siblings’ grief as a legitimate loss.
When society fails to validate the grief and sadness of bereaved siblings, they may not receive the support needed to cope and adjust to their loss. In the absence of confidence that their grief may get a hearing they may opt to keep their feelings to themselves and may even invalidate their own bereavement need. In having to struggle alone with their loss they may be susceptible to medical difficulties with their grief.
Anam Cara aims to address this shortfall in support for bereaved siblings in collaboration with other organisations.
Anam Cara recognises that currently in Ireland, there is little literature available for bereaved siblings, and even less support.
As a bereaved sibling commented “When my only brother died after a brief illness at the age of 43, my initial response was to search for information that would help me make sense out of such a terrible loss. I felt a special need to connect with other surviving siblings who might understand my grief. Perhaps they could offer me some insight, some comfort, some practical advice that would help me through those first difficult weeks and months. I wanted to know: How had they survived this?”
The introduction of an online secure message forum specifically for adult siblings has been designed and developed by steering committee of bereaved siblings and will be launched this coming Autumn by Anam Cara.
