TWO BROTHERS were last night preparing to sleep in an igloo which they built in Co Kerry to raise funds for a children’s charity.
Ciarán Moss (15), from the Kerries near Tralee, found he had time on his hands after being let out of school early, his father Ian explained yesterday.
He started making the igloo with small baking tins of snow the size of a loaf, and gradually increased the size of the blocks. However, he followed no particular blueprint or instructions, Mr Moss explained.
Over the four days of building the igloo, the family became aware of the Saoirse foundation, a charity founded to help brother and sister Saoirse and Liam Heffernan from Castlemaine, Co Kerry, who suffer from the rare Batten disease.
The resulting igloo, now 8ft tall, can sleep three people.
Ciarán and his 23-year-old brother Adam were last night being provided with plenty of sleeping bags to help them through the cold and all donations were going to the Bee for Battens – Saoirse Foundation charity.
This is the foundation created by Tony and Mary Heffernan, parents of Saoirse and Liam, to help other parents and to provide information and support for those diagnosed with Batten disease (Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinoses), a rare inherited disorder of the nervous system that usually strikes in childhood.
There has been huge public support in Co Kerry and nationally for the Heffernan family and more than 2,000 people recently attended an event in the INEC in Killarney to help raise funds and awareness of the disease.