Offaly Hospice calendar now on sale around the county

Offaly Hospice 2021 Calendar is on sale this week from the group's wonderful volunteers and in retail outlets throughout the county at just €5 each. It will also be available to order online and from our Henry St office for more information contact Mary on 0579328634 or email offalyhospice@gmail.com.

The theme of this year's calendar is based on repeat photography or the process of creating a modern view of an old photograph. Ten of the black and white photographs used in this year's calendar are from the Lawrence Collection. This collection is held in the National Library and consists of 40,000 photographs taken throughout Ireland during the period 1870 to 1914. The bulk of the collection was taken by Lawrence's chief photographer Robert French.

All of the 'now' versions of the photographs were taken between July and October 2020 and from roughly the same place that the original photographer used.

The photo of Ferbane is from the 1930s and was provided for the calendar by Aidan Wynne. Aidan also provided the 'now' version taken in October 2020. Padraic Seery and Michael Byrne kindly provided the photograph of the Main Street in Daingean from the Offaly Historical Society Archives.

When Offaly Hospice Foundation produced the calendar for 2020, our first calendar, little did we know what the year would bring! COVID19 has affected all our lives in so many different ways. We can only hope and pray for better times in 2021. At Offaly Hospice we continue to provide funds for Hospice services in County Offaly and remain determined to see a Specialist Hospice In-patient Unit provided for the Midlands Region.

That unit is essential for optimal Hospice care now and into the future. Thanks to your continued generosity, the Midlands Hospice Building fund has risen to almost €680,000 but we must keep fundraising. Offaly Hospice recently launched a new website www.offalyhospice.ie which allows online donations so important with the COVID disruption to so many of our fundraising events.

A Mobile Information Unit will be launched soon to raise awareness of Hospice services and what we are trying to achieve. The unit will in time visit every town and village in the county and beyond. Sincere thanks to Michael Carroll for producing our wonderful calendar, it is a credit to him. The 'Old and the New' is surely proof of how resilient we really are.