The Cranberries hit “Dreams” was amongst the songs performed at a recent special fundraising concert featuring the HSE Tullamore Choir along with St Brigid’s Community Choir in Kiltoom and Le Chéile Choir.  Raising funds to support Ukrainian refugees, the collaborative choir performed before a packed audience in St Catherine’s Church, Tullamore. It was a special night for choir members as it followed their relatively recent return to face to face practice in March and represented their first face to face performance for several years – for the HSE Tullamore Choir it was their first outing since Christmas 2019.  It was also a first for many audience members who were attending their first live performance in quite some time.

Generosity

Introducing the event, Reverend Isaac Delamare highlighted the plight of the Ukrainian refugees who had arrived locally and thanked all who were supporting them as most have arrived with little in terms of personal belongings.  He thanked the crowd for their generosity on the night and welcomed the many more audience members who were viewing via the church webcam.

Members of HSE Tullamore Staff Choir were elated after the event, getting positive feedback from the many colleagues, friends and family members who attended.

Claire Donnelly, Operations Manager, HSE Chronic Disease Management, who is in two of the choirs, the HSE Staff Choir and the Le Cheile Choir explained that it was “so long since we performed to a live crowd it is a great sense of joy and relief that they seemed to enjoy it. Thanks to those who donated on the night, those funds will go to helping local families and we also have an online fundraiser which we will be promoting through our Facebook page in aid of the Irish Refugee Trust”

HSE Health and Wellbeing are encouraging staff choirs to get back up and running to benefit their members wellbeing and social engagement with their colleagues. Sarah McCormack, Lead for Staff Health and Wellbeing and Healthy Ireland added that they would “love to see choirs back up and running and encourage new choirs to set up. September could be great time to get together and choirs could be performing for their patients and colleagues by Christmas time.”

 Watch the choir sing Dreams