Cork family walks from sunrise to sunset on Easter Monday for Barretstown

Dillon, his sister Rachel and his father, Pat O'Brien are undertaking the challenge this Easter Monday to walk from sunrise to sunset for the children's charity, Barretstown.

A family living in Kildorrery, Co Cork are walking from sunrise to sunset in aid of the children's charity Barretstown using all the roads within their 5km restriction limit. 

Dillon, his sister Rachel, and his father Pat O'Brien undertook the challenge this morning at 7am when the sunrose today on Easter Monday and won't stop until sunset this evening after 8.00pm. 

Dillon's Adventures, run by the CBS Secondary School Mitchelstown student and his family, has been fundraising for charities with €10,000 raised over the last six years. 

€6,000 of this has gone to Barretstown in the past three years with sponsored hikes. 

This year, the keen hikers had planned to do the High Point Ireland 10,000m Challenge 2021 by hiking the mountains throughout the country however this was not possible due to public health restrictions. 

Instead, the family set out to hike all the roads within their 5km limit near their home in north Cork. 

The fundraisers said: "With the mountains out of reach for the moment we will keep within our 5K limit on Easter Monday and the plan is to start walking at sunrise at 7 am and walk all day until sunset after 8 pm.

"We have a lot of local routes and know them well at this stage due to a great initiative from "The Ireland Walking Guide" called #WalkEveryDay2021 which has got us out every day so far this year for a walk and we intend to keep it up for the rest of the year all going well."

The 13 hour trip on local roads has seen them climb hills and cross rivers in the townlands surrounding Kildorrery. 

At the time of writing the trio had just completed 60km and raised €1,610 so far. 

Barretstown is not for profit children's charity that offers free, specially designed camps and programmes for children and their families living with a serious illness.

Disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, last year the charity launched a new online interactive platform to support seriously ill children through the pandemic.

If you would like to make a donation to their campaign you can do so here and follow their online on the campaign's social media pages.