Tickets now available for Offaly Person of the Year presentation

TICKETS are now available for the 33rd Offaly Person of the Year gala presentation dinner which takes place next month in Tullamore.

The recipient of the 2021 Offaly Person of the Year award is mental health activist James O'Connor while Pullough Community Shop will receive the 2021 Unsung Hero of Offaly award.

The awards ceremony, organised by a sub-committee of the Offaly Association (Dublin), will be held in the Bridge House Hotel, Tullamore on Saturday, April 9 next.

Proceedings commence with a drinks reception in the foyer of the hotel at 7pm and the gala dinner will be served at 7.30pm.

Tickets are available at the Bridge House Hotel, Tullamore Tribune office or from any member of the organising committee. For more details contact 083 1750285.

James O'Connor, who runs the company fititout.ie, has spoken publicly in the past about how he needed psychiatric care after suffering a breakdown when his baby daughter died.

Mr O'Connor became active in battling the stigma associated with mental health struggles and became an ambassador for the See Change Green Ribbon campaign.

He then decided to found Accessible Counselling Tullamore (ACT) as a community-based response. The group was particularly busy over the past two years during the Covid pandemic.

Pullough Community Shop was founded in 2017 when a group of local volunteers took action to ensure the village and its surrounding rural area continued to have such an essential facility.

The shop is open seven days a week and is manned by local volunteers who give of their time freely.

In all 21 people were nominated by the public for the 2021 awards: James O'Connor, Tullamore, Declan Kelly, Kilclonfert, Michaela Morkan, Shinrone, John Cronin, Tullamore,

Seamus Boland, The Island, John Jones, Rhode, Sr Genny, Tullamore, Nicole Turner, Portarlington (Gracefield), Darragh Kenny, Belmont, Daingean GAA, Pullough Community Shop, John Feehan, Birr; Abdul Hafiz, Tullamore; Geraldine O'Neill, Daingean; John O'Connor, Durrow; Paul Galvin, Tullamore; Bertie McMahon, Clara; Jack McDermott, Tullamore; Brian Sheridan, Clara; Peter Ormonde, Shinrone, Ken Smollen, Tullamore and Clara.