Roscrea school makes face shields for health staff

Funds are pouring in from members of the public to support the work of a teacher in Roscrea who is churning out face shields to protect medical staff working in the front line of the coronavirus pandemic.
The generosity shown by people towards the work of Diarmuid Hough, who teaches technology at Coláiste Phobal Ros Cré,  coincides with another major act of kindness in Nenagh that has resulted in local nurse Sandra Farrell receiving 1,000 blue protective gowns for health staff as a birthday present from a friend in Taiwan.
Contacted by The Guardian on Monday, Diarmuid Hough was so busy making face shields that he could only take a little time to speak to this newspaper.
"The initiative to make the face shields started in Saint Ailbe's schools in Tipperary Town, so we here in Coláiste Phobal decided to jump on board and try to get as many made in north Tipperary as well," Diarmuid revealed.
The college authorities gave Diarmuid access to the school, closed due to the restrictions, in order to manufacture the shields.
"I have access to all the equipment I need here to make the shields in the college. I have made 250 so far and my hope is to get to 1,500 in total," Diarmuid told The Guardian.
He is working alone in the college in order to abide by physical distancing restrictions, but his voluntary sole mission has sent waves of goodness out into the local community.
"Other people are delivering the shields. We are just trying to do our bit, that's all," said Diarmuid.
He revealed that his face shields were in great demand by health services. "There is a big demand from nursing homes looking for them and I was talking to a hospital yesterday who was looking for them as well. So we're doing whatever we can to produce more, at no cost to those who want them. It's all we can do for people."
　Sandra Farrell, who runs the Patterson Nursing Home at Lismackin, Roscrea, said she was so impressed by what Diarmuid and his supporters were doing that she decided to issue an online appeal to generate cash to fund his great work.
"I saw the 'GoFundMe' page that Diarmuid's wife had set up online and so I contacted him to say that we would be short of face shields on the ground," said Sandra.
"I said to him that as it was my birthday this weekend I would do a fundraiser and try to raise around €500."
Sandra could hardly believe the massive reaction to her Facebook appeal. "Within two hours of her appeal last Sunday the sum donate by people went up to €2,000, and so I then decided to set the bar to €3,000 for Monday. But before that morning had passed the sum had been reached, so I have now decided to raise the bar to €5,000, to be reached by midnight Monday - a sum sufficient to make 3,000 face shields."
Ms Farrell, who stood as a candidate for Fianna Fáil in the recent general election, also revealed that she had received 1,000 protective blue gowns for health staff in as a gesture of friendship from the other side of the world.
"I have a friend in Taiwan who is the CEO of a company making blue gowns. She just sent me 1,000 of them for my birthday."
"People are showing great generosity across the world," said Ms Farrell, who intends to retain some of the gowns for her own nursing home staff and distribute the rest to nursing homes in need.