Aisling's Journey

Hi everyone,

My name is Louise Kennedy and I am Aisling’s mother. Thank you all so much for your amazing generosity and the support of Aisling which we have received, and to Jim, Aisling’s uncle, in establishing this fund. Your bake sales, sponsored walks, busking sessions and tremendous kindness have helped us take the first steps in what will be a very long journey with Aisling.

On the 7th of April 2022,  I received the phone call which every parent fears most, and what was a routine journey home from work and school for everyone in our family culminated in Temple Street Hospital. On walking the last few yards to home, our beautiful little girl, Aisling, was struck in the head by the wing mirror of a van and in the movement from one side of the road to the other her life was changed forever. Aisling was so fortunate to immediately receive the help of passing motorists, of our wonderful neighbours, and of the life saving paramedic and air ambulance teams which treated her at the scene. She was immediately airlifted to Dublin, such was the severity of her injury, where she remains today.

Aisling is an amazingly energetic and outgoing girl and a dedicated sportswoman. On the day of her accident she was not only looking forward to the end of her 1st Year in the Presentation Secondary School Clonmel and the long summer ahead, but more importantly to trying out the new football boots which she had bought, at training later that evening with Ballymacarbry LGFC. Aisling has always been a fierce competitor on the pitch and she has proved herself just as much of a fighter off of it.

Despite the life threatening nature of her injuries, Aisling has fought her way to this point and now she needs your help.

 In truth, we do not know for certain at this moment what the long term prognosis for Aisling will be. She has awakened from her induced coma, enjoys following us with her eyes and still does not like being tickled. Her amazing doctors in Temple Street have confided in us that she has already defied all the odds, that typically patients who have sustained as severe a brain trauma as Aisling very rarely survive the initial injury, but that her care needs will be life altering, profound and long term.

To continue her journey home and to recovery, Aisling will require constant care, treatment and the complete alteration of our family environment. Since her accident ten weeks ago, Thomas and myself have remained at her bedside and the support which we, her sisters Eimear and Aoife and her extended family, have received has been truly humbling. 

We ask you now to please join with Aisling in her journey to recovery in whatever way you can and help us bring her home.

Thank you all so much, 

Louise x