Great progress made on building a house for Adam

The home being built for the family of a six-year-old Tipperary boy with severe autism by a group of volunteers is starting to take shape.

The volunteers are working flat out every weekend to help renovate and extend a dilapidated house and turn it into a home for Adam Lawrence and his family. “We will be on the roof stage next week hopefully. We had set a moving in date for around Christmas but hopefully the family will be in by late September or October,” said volunteer Martin Barry.

The “A Home for Adam” campaign is being spearheaded by a group of volunteer building trades people who completed the late Michael Barry’s (a brother of Martin’s) family home in Dundrum in 2019 which he had been building before he died from cancer at the age of 34. The project was featured on RTÉ’s DIY SOS series. The volunteers went on last year to build a specially adapted home near Cullen village for the family of little Eve Creamer, who suffers from a rare incurable cancer condition.

Martin thanked people who responded to their appeal for more tradesmen to volunteer in March and he said they were overwhelmed by the generous response of so many companies who have come forward with supplies.

“What we really need now is for plumbing materials for the first and second fix stage. We really need radiators, pipework and fittings.

“We also need slabs, skim, windows and doors, skylights, stairs, tiles, skirting and architrave and would appreciate a response on that,” said Martin. He said that the GoFundMe page set up was approaching €30,000 and he thanked everyone for contributing so generously.

“We do need plumbing supplies but we would also welcome any companies who wish to provide other building materials,” said Martin. Adam, who attends Scoil Aonghusa in Cashel, is son of Patrick Lawrence, a native of Woodvale Walk in Fethard, and Anne Marie Ryan from Donaskeigh, a healthcare assistant at St Teresa’s Nursing Home in Cashel.

He has two older sisters Leah, aged 20, and Michaela, aged 15. The family moved from Golden where they had rented a house for many years to the site of their new home at Knockahernaduff, Upperchurch in December. There is a house on the site that requires extensive renovation and the family currently live in a mobile home there.

Patrick said he bought the site two years ago and originally planned to transform the house into their family home over several years. He is a builder and steel erector but has given up work to look after Adam, who is non-verbal and requires 24-hour care.

Patrick was one of the volunteers who worked on completing the late Michael Barry’s home for his family in Dundrum and on the Creamer family’s new home. He said he felt “overwhelmed” when Michael Barry’s brother Martin, who worked on both building campaigns with him, proposed taking on their family home as their next project.