Flooding support fundraiser for South Roscommon family hits €10,000

An online fundraiser set up in support of a mother and her three children who were forced to move out of their home due to the record flooding levels at Lough Funshinagh has raised €10,000 in just a few days.

Barry McLaughlin set up the GoFundMe appeal earlier this week to support his sister, Ellie, and her three children, Harry, Kristen and Luka.

The family had to move out of their home at Lysterfield, Curraghboy, last Friday after floodwater around the property rose dramatically

At the time of writing, the exact figure raised on the GoFundMe page, 'Help Ellie and her 3 kids after devastating flood' was €9,995, from 155 individual donations. Donations can be made on the fundraising page here.

Ellie told the Westmeath Independent that the flooding had taken a "devastating" toll on her and her children, but that she had been overwhelmed by the amount of love and support shown by the local community.

Discussing the crisis at Lough Funshinagh, she said: "It's unprecedented, the level of water that came in so quickly, but we saw this coming for years because the (overflow) pipe works, the preventative works (to stop homes being flooded) were supposed to be carried out years ago.

“They weren't, and now me and my neighbour have no home that we can live in.”

She said efforts were made in the last week to move furniture and other items out of her house, but the level of water around it made that very hazardous.

“To move my belongings out, people had to carry things above their heads, wade through water and climb over floodgates. So it was really dangerous.

“It should never have reached this point, where it’s crisis mode.”

One positive she touched upon is a sense that the Government is finally realising the urgency and severity of the crisis at Lough Funshinagh. The new Minister for the OPW, Kieran O’Donnell, visited the area last Friday and went to Ellie’s home.

“The Minister saw firsthand the devastation and the impact this flooding has had on me and my children and my home, my livelihood and everything else in the local community.

“So (the Government) are well aware of how dangerous and unviable this whole situation is. They’re also aware that action needs to happen right now.

“There is no more time. Something needs to happen now, because if not more homes are going to be affected and more lives are going to be ruined.”

Ballagh in Rahara had been the area worst affected by the Lough Funshinagh flooding up until the middle of last week, when the water quickly spread further, towards Curraghboy.

Roscommon County Council said that, due to ongoing flooding adjacent to Lough Funshinagh, in the townland of Coolnageer, it had to close the R362 regional road from Lysterfield to Curraghboy.

“Local access shall be in place, and diversions will be signposted between Athleague and Curraghboy,” said the council.

“Lough Funshinagh is now out of control and it was inevitable that the flooding would extend due to the continued inaction of Government,” remarked local councillor Laurence Fallon last week.

His fellow Independent councillor, Curraghboy’s Cllr Tony Ward, pointed out that the two homes evacuated in the last week were less than 1km from the village of Curragboy itself.

He explained that previous winter flooding from the lake might have flooded 400 or 450 acres of farmland, but the current extent of the flooding covered an area about three times as large.

“There are a lot of families adjacent to Lough Funshinagh that are only hanging on by their fingernails in relation to their family home. That’s how critical it is, and how severe it is,” said Cllr Ward.

He said locals in South Roscommon don’t understand why emergency action can’t be taken by the Government to tackle the crisis.

“They were willing to (take emergency action) when the banks were going belly up. They were using emergency powers then. Every local authority should have emergency powers, but it seems they don’t,” he said.

Cllr Ward added that if the emergency use of a flood relief pipeline is not authorised in the near future, the consequences would be unthinkable.

“If it that doesn’t happen, this area won’t be able to withstand another winter,” he said simply.