TRIBUTES from across Ireland, and Europe have been paid to John Walsh, Bere Island, who died at the age of 55 following a short illness.
John was originally from Mayfield in Cork City but moved to Bere Island at the age of 17 to help on his uncle’s farm. He met his wife Sheila in Beara, and the couple settled on the island where they raised their three children.
After serving as a voluntary committee member with the Bere Island Projects Group, John became a staff member in 2004 taking on the role of project co-ordinator where he would remain for nearly 20 years.
During his time with the group, John was responsible for instigating a number of key projects. He successfully applied for EU funding to restore a former island national school as a state of the art heritage centre for the island, which was officially opened by President Mary McAleese. He assisted Bere Island GAA Club with constructing a new club house and renovating the pitch. At the request of the Department of Rural and Community Development, he also oversaw community development work on five other West Cork Islands of Dursey, Whiddy, Sherkin, Long and Heir for a number of years.
John worked tirelessly to highlight issues facing, not just Bere Island, but all Irish offshore islands thought his work with Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann and the European Small Islands Network (ESIN).
One of his last tasks before he left Bere Island Projects Group was, as chair of ESIN to host the group’s agm on Bere Island with islanders from 40 European islands visiting the island.
For any meeting held on Bere Island, John made sure there was always time for attendees to be given a tour of the island he was so proud to call his home.
In recent years, two of the key projects which will serve to ensure that John’s legacy lives on, is developing the Parkrun on Bere Island in 2014, and launching a community radio station.
The Bere Parkrun, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary this August, has now become one of the most go-to locations for Parkruns in the world, with runners travelling from as far afield as Australia.
Since its launch John persuaded many a visiting government minister to participate in the island Parkrun, along with leading sports stars, including Irish Olympian Sonia O’Sullivan.
In 2018 John was instrumental in Bere Island’s inclusion in an EU Horizon project which led to the setting up of Bere Island Community Radio. As station manager and also a presenter on the weekly radio programme, John’s dedication to the station has ensured that the island community and wider Beara peninsula has a voice.
In the week following his death, Bere Island Community Radio, broadcast a special tribute show to John, with contributions from government agencies and island bodies, along with islanders throughout West Cork, and the western seaboard, and many of the Bere Island diaspora sending in message of sympathy from the four corners of the world. The programme showed just how much of an impact John had and how much he meant to everyone.
John left Bere Island Projects Group in 2023 to take up a new role with Atlantic Towage and Marine, an island-based marine company.
John at the helm at Bere island's radio station which he helped establish.
It was a fitting tribute that on John’s final journey to his beloved Bere Island the company’s flagship tug, Ocean Challenger sprayed an arc of water jets, as the Bere Island ferry carrying his coffin sailed towards the island, followed by a large flotilla of local boats, including the Castletownbere RNLI lifeboat.
Huge crowds attended John’s funeral service at St Michael’s Church on Bere Island. John was a lifelong Liverpool supporter, and as his coffin was carried from the church to the adjacent graveyard, an honour guard of Parkrunners lined the pathway, as the Liverpool anthem, You’ll Never Walk Alone was played as the hundreds of mourners followed, to ensure that their island champion would not be alone on his final journey.
John Walsh is survived by his wife, Sheila, son Adam, daughters Laura and Aoife, his brother Laurence, his sisters Angela O’Leary and Caroline O’Sullivan and extended family.
