Thousands of red candles were held aloft, swaying in the cold air as singer Christy Moore sang Fairy Tale of New York.
More than 10,000 people had gathered to mark the annual Our Lady’s Hospice ‘Light Up a Life’ celebration at its Harold’s Cross, Dublin facility.
The Kildare singer, special guest at the celebration, switched on the lights at what is thought to be the largest Christmas tree in Dublin after which thousands of people who had purchased a candle to remember a loved one, moved to place them under the tree, beside the thousand or so candles already there.
The Palestrina Girls’ Choir and the CIE Male Voice Choir were among the performers at the ceremony, which MC Ian Dempsey said had grown from 200-300 people in its first year to more than 10,000 participants this year.
‘Light Up a Life’ is one of the hospice’s biggest fundraising events, but chief executive Audrey Houlihan said “it’s also an opportunity for us to give back to everybody who’s supported us throughout the year” and mark the start of Christmas.
She said “people who come here generally have a shared loss. Usually they have a relative or friend who died in the hospice or died at home under our care. They all come to ‘Light Up a Life’ to reflect”.
She said: “It’s €6 per light and sometimes people buy a memory card. From two weeks ago right up to Christmas Eve, people come and light a candle.
“A lot of it happens online now, which is a real shift, but we would put the lights under the tree in their honour if they can’t make it in.”
Last year the hospice raised €460,000 and the funding went towards the building of 36 single-bed wards for palliative care.
“We’ve had a building since only the 90s but they were built with four-bedded bays and obviously that’s not a satisfactory environment, particularly in end of life care and pain management.”
Ms Houlihan said that in the past 10 years Our Lady’s Hospice in Harold’s Cross and Blackrock, Dublin, had looked after more than 20,000 people, either in the hospice or in people’s homes.
Among those who benefited was an aunt of Gráinne O’Neachtain from Tramore, Co Waterford. “I’m here because my aunt Maura Cregg was here, first of all for palliative day-care and then she became a resident. She was lucky enough to get a bed in the long-stay unit,” she said.
“They were so kind, so good to her. They kept her so comfortable and they treated her with such dignity and respect, through her illness, through her pain.”
She added: “The life that’s here belies the fact that it’s a hospital. It’s such a living place. People live amazingly well until the very end and then they leave this world with such dignity.”
Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar was among those at the ceremony.
“I’m just here at the invitation of the ‘Light Up a Life’ team,” he said. “I worked with the hospice movement as Minister for Health and I’d like to keep the contact up because they do fantastic work.”
