LIFFEY CHAMPION
Saturday 25 June 2011
Golfers tee up for charity in memory of Frankie Pringle
by Laura Donnelly
In memory of keen golfer Frankie Pringle who died suddenly two years ago, family and friends got together on Saturday 28th May to compete in the second annual Frankie Pringle Memorial Cup.
Frankie who lived in Newcastle, died on 6th May 2009 of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, and participants in the golf competition recently presented a cheque for €1,905 to Marie Greene, co-founder of CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young).
One of the organizers, Ken Pringle from Aylmer Road in Newcastle explained: “Myself and a group of Frankie’s friends organized the event in memory of my brother who died at the age of 37”.
“He died just two weeks before his birthday, so we held the event as close to his birthday, 27th May, as we could. He would have been 40 this year”.
“He went to bed one night and never woke up, so as well as doing something in his memory, we wanted to raise money for CRY too,” he said.
“After his death all of the family had to go to the CRY Unit in Tallaght Hospital to see if the condition was hereditary, and the staff were so good to us there”.
“They don’t get any funding, they depend on charitable donations, so we decided to raise funds for them.”
CRY is an Irish registered charity, which was founded in 2002 and funds raised are used by the charity to support the families who have lost a relative to sudden cardiac death (SCD), to raise awareness of the conditions that cause SCD, and to fund the activities of the Centre for Cardiac Risk in Younger Persons (CRYP) in Tallaght Hospital.
The Centre provides comprehensive cardiac evaluation of those may be at risk from SCD either because of family history or worrying symptoms.
A total of 51 golfers took part in the singles tournament on Saturday, 28th May in Millicent Golf Club in Clane.
“Darren McGoldrick was the overall winner, and the winner of the Frankie Pringle Memorial cup was myself, as we decided at the beginning that the cup would go to a member of Newcastle Golf club” said Ken.
“We raised €1,905 this year and we had a great day in Millicent. We raised €8,140 last year as it was the first year of the fundraiser, we decided to tone it down this year as we didn’t want to keep asking the same people for money”.
“After the golf we came back to our local, The Gondola in Newcastle, where we presented the prizes and had a raffle, with prizes kindly donated by local businesses.
“Newcastle is a very small village but we received great support from everyone.
“We intend to hold the tournament around the time of Frankie’s birthday every year to keep his memory alive”.