THE Bonnington Hotel in Dublin hosted up to 400 people on Saturday night for the annual Donegal Person of the Year presentation event where the people of Creeslough were honoured as the 2022 recipients of the award.
Ten people were killed and several injured following an explosion at the Applegreen Service Station in the village of Creeslough on Friday, October 7th last year.
The community was left numbed by the tragedy, and families, residents, first responders, and countless others are still coming to terms with what happened on that Friday afternoon.
It was a very poignant night where family members of some of those killed along with people first on the scene of the tragedy came together at the Donegal event in the capital.
Many Donegal people travelled to Dublin for the occasion, while Donegal folk living in the city turned out in big numbers to honour Creeslough and the courage and community spirit of its people.
As part of this year’s award, the association commissioned musician Matt McGranaghan to compose a piece of music fitting for the occasion and as a tribute to the Creeslough community.
Entitled ‘olldáimh’, he performed the piece on fiddle, accompanied by Denis Roper on piano, following an explanation on how he created it.
Matt said he began to realise that there is a commonality within us all, a thread that draws us back to our roots in times of grief, and especially in times of unspeakable tragedy.
“When I started to think about writing this piece of music I thought about those things. The importance of a sense of belonging to a place, and a sense of belonging to your family and people. I then thought about our own individual sense of self, and our own sense of belief and faith in whatever it is we have faith or belief in. That is when I realised that these four affinities, sense of belonging to a place, sense of belonging to a people, sense of self, sense of faith and belief, are universal, and these are where we go to find healing,” he said.
He needed a word for the four affinities and realised that if any language would have a word it would be the Irish language.
He contacted former broadcaster Áine Ní Churráin who put him in touch with Micheál Ó Dónaill of University of Galway and from there the word ‘olldáimh’ was born as the title for the composed piece.
As the evening progressed, several members of the Creeslough community were welcomed on stage to accept awards from association president Elaine Caffery and Chairman Kevin Mc Fadden and they received a standing ovation.
Creeslough resident Annette Mc Clafferty, addressing the gathering in Irish, extended a sincere thanks to the Donegal Association in Dublin for bestowing the 2022 award on the community.
She also extended thanks to everyone who has helped the community in any way over the past six months.
Speaking to the Donegal News, chairperson of the Donegal Association in Dublin and Carrigart native Kevin Mc Fadden said the entire country watched on and held Creeslough in their hearts last October.
“For us Donegal folk living in Dublin we shared their grief. We were in awe of the response to the tragedy with so many people from Donegal and further afield giving their all in the hours that followed. I am delighted that we are presenting the 2022 Person of the Year award to the people of Creeslough tonight. Its people have shown the world the true meaning of community and are an example to us all.
“We remember those who lost their lives, think of the bereaved, the emergency services, the first responders, and the many individuals and businesses who did whatever was asked of them and much more,” he said.
Outgoing Donegal Person of the Year, Noel Cunningham told the Donegal News that being selected as the 2019 Donegal Person of the Year was beyond his wildest dreams and said it gave him a further platform to promote his beautiful county.
Describing it as an institution, he said it is a great honour to be on such a worthy list.
Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, no one was presented with the award in 2020 or 2021, leaving Noel Cunningham as the longest serving award recipient.
He recalled he was on a pilgrimage in Medjugorje when the news about Creeslough broke and spoke of how several thousand pilgrims from all over the world fell silent that evening remembering the people affected by the tragedy.
“Tonight we honour a most extraordinary community, the people of Creeslough. We remember and recognise the extraordinary lessons the Creeslough community taught the world. In the depths of their grief, they taught us all a lesson in life as they dealt with so many loved ones passing far too soon. May all those gentle souls rest in peace,” he said.
Noel said that the people who died in the Creeslough tragedy will be forever remembered. “A wise old man once told me that people die twice, they leave us and we allow them to die a second time because we no longer speak of them. We in Donegal, Ireland, the world will never stop talking of those people who died in Creeslough. We will keep them alive,” he added.
The Donegal Association in Dublin was founded as a result of the Arranmore Disaster, a tragedy on the night of November 9, 1935 when nineteen islanders lost their lives as they made the trip from the mainland in Burtonport. Most were returning to the island following a season of work in Scotland.
Previous winners in attendance on the night included Deirdre Mc Gloin, Danny Mc Daid, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Stephen Mc Cahill, Annemarie Ward, and John Carr.
The first recipient of the Person of the Year award was Fr James Mc Dyer in 1978.
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