Fundraisers scale the heights to send more livestock to needy families

PLAYING in a Munster final would have been easier than the ordeal hurling fans Michael Beehan and Podge O’Brien went though to raise funds for Bóthar, to send more livestock to needy families.

Along with other Bóthar supporters, they first endured the heat of Africa’s equatorial forest before embarking on a seven day climb to the freezing summit of Kilimanjaro, the continent’s highest mountain.

Michael, a farmer in the Comeragh mountains in west Waterford, and Podge, from a farming background at Charleville, Co Cork donned their county jerseys and crossed hurls at the peak, 19,340 feet above sea level.