Local recipients win National Garda Youth Awards

An Garda Síochána held its annual National Garda Youth Awards at the Midlands Park Hotel, Portlaoise on Saturday last which recognise exceptional young people aged 13-21 who have positively contributed to their community and there were two worthy local recipients of awards.
The Garda National Youth Awards were promoted and expanded by the then Assistant Commissioner, Anne Marie McMahon and who now as Deputy Commissioner continues to recognise the meaningful work of so many young people in communities all across Ireland.

Handled With Hearts: Drumshanbo Vocational School
Alex O’Looney, Amy Keaveney and Freya Whitney are all 2nd Year students in Drumshanbo Vocational School, and as part of their first year Student Enterprise Award entry they came together to create a product, ‘Grasper.’
The Grasper was created with Alex’s grandfather in mind after she spotted him bending down to lift the lid of a slatted tank cover with his fingers and a pitchfork she grew concerned. Their simple but unique mechanism saves a farmer or agricultural contractor the need to strain their back by having to open and close the slatted tank agitation cover by hand.
The three young women carried out extensive research into the development of their product and gave great attention to their choices in superior materials as well as the lengthy manufacturing process with the hope to make the perfect product.
They undoubtedly have, and they’ve travelled the length and breadth of the country to promote the Grasper - in turn gaining the admiration of and those working in the agricultural sector nationwide.

Brian Cull, Arigna
Brian Cull knows the grief of unexpectedly losing a loved one in tragic circumstances. He lost both his Father and brother, with whom he was fiercely close to, within five short years one another.
In the difficult days and weeks that followed both tragedies, Brian and his family were offered support by ‘North West Stop’ – a community based organisation that provides the families bereaved by suicide with access to counselling services.
In memory of his dear father and brother, Brian wanted to raise awareness of suicide particularly among the farming community and so he went out to set up an annual Tractor Run in aid of North West Stop. Brian was the driving force behind this initiative and received great support from his sisters and close friends. Events of this scale require so much work behind the scenes and Brian took it all in his stride.
That’s on top of the fact he remarkably took on the family farm while still in secondary school and Brian has just completed the Leaving Certificate. Now heading for its fourth year, the Tractor Run involved 200 odd tractors and has raised just shy of €70,000 in much-needed funds for North West Stop’s counselling service.
This amount of money raised equates to thousands of hours of counselling provided free of charge to those in need of it.
Admired and respected by all who know him, Brian is only starting into what he has the proven potential to achieve.