A Galway man started his swim of the entire River Shannon on Friday in aid of the Irish Cancer Society and East Galway and Midlands Cancer Support.
Aiden Sheridan (43), from Ballinaloe, aims to raise €50,000 in memory of his late brother Mark, who died from cancer in 2017. Their sister Jennifer was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and has made a full recovery.
“Jennifer beat the cancer and I decided to do something for her at the time [of her treatment]. I ran 52 marathons over 52 weeks in 2016,” Mr Sheridan said.
Mark was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer which spread from his hip to his chest and died within days of being diagnosed.
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Aiden recalls his final conversation with Mark before he died.
“We were chatting about when Jennifer had breast cancer and the fundraising I did and Mark started slagging me and said I have to do something for him. I came up with the idea to swim the length of the Shannon because it hadn’t been done too many times before. I think only five people have done it. So, it will be a good achievement and raise some funds for the Irish Cancer Society and the East Galway and Midlands Cancer Support.”
Sheridan started his 245km swim in Dowra, Co Cavan, on Friday and will finish at Curraghgour Boat Club in Limerick on July 29th, weather depending.
“We had a lot of local events over the last couple of months; like raffles and quiz nights and all different things like that have gone on around Ballinasloe — and the town has been very supportive, all the businesses got behind it. I think we’re near €20,000 raised locally so far. So now we’re going out across the country and nationally, we want to get the iDonate page out there to get the figure up,” said Sheridan.
His wife Elaine and their two children labelled him a “chancer” for coming up with this mammoth task.
“When I told them, they weren’t too impressed because I’d be away training the whole time. I went into the house, and I said to Elaine what I was planning on doing.
“So, we wanted to come up with a name for it we ended up calling it Sheridan Swims the Shannon. They wanted to call it, Can the Chancer Swim for Cancer, but we didn’t go with that just in case anyone might get offended.
If you would like to donate to Sheridan Swims the Shannon, visit the iDonate page here: https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/11420962_sheridan-swims-the-shannon.html