People of Longwood rally to send vital medical equipment to Polish border

A truckload of humanitarian aid including 33 hospital beds was delivered to a distribution centre in Poland yesterday by Cathal Byrne of Longwood Transport who has paid tribute to the people of Longwood for their incredible response to the Ukrainian appeal.

Cathal who runs Longwood Transport told how he had done some work previously for the Medaid4kids charity, which sends hospital equipment donated by Irish hospitals for children in grief stricken areas, and they had asked him if he would do this run himself to deliver hospital beds donated by Tallaght Hospital.

There was some extra space in the lorry and Cathal put out an appeal on the local facebook page for donations of blankets, duvets, pillows, sleeping bags, toiletries, nappies and wipes, and says he was overwhelmed by the response and the incredible community spirit in Longwood.

“There was a huge response. So much more than we expected. We had a job to get it all in,” said Cathal speaking to the Meath Chronicle on Monday afternoon with just kilometres to go before they reached the distribution centre in Warsaw.

“The beds were to be the full load but I said if we tighten it up a bit we might get more in and we actually managed to get 10 full pallets in loaded from floor to ceiling,” said Cathal who was accompanied by his father Tom who came out of retirement for the trip.

Between them they shared the driving and Cathal said they managed to get there ahead of schedule. The journey went off without a hitch and Cathal said the weather was fabulous.

They set out from Dublin on Saturday morning to the UK and from there sailed for Rotterdam and had reached Poznan in Poland on Sunday and finished the last leg to Warsaw on Monday.

They were also delighted to be able to deliver cards made by children in the local primary school for Ukrainian children, some of which were even written in Ukrainian.

Cathal has thanked everybody who donated and helped in any way and said he was very humbled by the response.

“When we set out, we were taking on the cost of the trip ourselves but it is coming very close to being covered with a couple of companies we work with donating towards fuel.” He also said they had got free passage on the ferry and that the Polish government had waived the toll charges. “Everybody has been pulling out all the stops”

“The response was massive, it just spiralled out of control. I was isolating with Covid last week and I was wondering how would we get it all done but everybody took over and everyone was amazing. There is a great community in Longwood.”