Marian in limelight as AIDS work honoured
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By Jason O'Brien
Thursday Dec 3 2009
MARIAN Finucane has long since perfected the art of getting her radio guests to open up while she has kept her own life resolutely private.
Yesterday her husband John Clarke provided a little insight on what drives the country's most popular female broadcaster when she is not on air.
Mr Clarke was speaking after being named International Philanthropist of the Year for his work with a South African AIDS charity. And he was anxious that the award -- and the credit -- be shared by the charity's other co-founder.
"We were on holidays in 2001 and we met this nun who was nursing dying babies in a township in Cape Town," he said. "She wanted a hospice where she could have the mothers and the children so if either party died she could look after the other party.
"We gave her a few bob and then on the way home Marian and I said, 'what the hell, we'll build it'.
Clinic
"So we came home, talked to all sorts of souls, Irish Aid gave us money, people we met on the road gave us money. We had the hospice built in three months."
Since then Friends In Ireland has developed 10 outreach units in the Eastern Cape of South Africa where 600 children are fed daily. The charity has also built a HIV outpatients' clinic in Lusikisiki which sees over 3,500 patients per week.
"I was there last Thursday and the police dropped in two children, one three-year-old and one 12-month old," Mr Clarke said.
"The mother had been trying to kill them in a nearby forest. The little boy died. Shouldn't have happened. But that's our business.
"Nobody knows how many orphans are out there but there's a fella called Bishop Liam Slattery from Carrick-on-Suir and he figures in his diocese on the Eastern Cape he has up to 100,000 orphans.
"Many are left with family members after parents die, mainly from HIV/AIDS.
"I know grannies who are afraid to go to their daughter's funeral because they will get the kids. They probably have four or five kids already. They're getting €1 a day."
Mr Clarke said that the charity has grown to take up "20 hours of my day", and that he gets out to South Africa three times per year while Ms Finucane travels twice a year.
The publicity-shy couple were in the headlines for all the wrong reasons during one of those trips in February 2007 when their home in Kildare was burgled and their then 19-year-old son viciously assaulted.
Their other child, Sinead, died in 1990 of leukaemia. She was eight years old
Yesterday, Ms Finucane was present as the Community Foundation for Ireland praised her husband's work -- and specifically his ability to work with politicians to create a sustainable long-term care programme in the Eastern Cape -- at an awards ceremony.
Writer
"We're there for the long haul," Mr Clarke said. "If you take on an orphan you are going to be there for 16 years anyhow."
The writer Nuala O'Faolain-- a close friend of Ms Finucane -- last year left €800,000 in her will to the charity. "Our big slogan is every penny you give goes over there," Mr Clarke said. "We absorb all the costs."
Chantal McCabe of Social Innovations Ireland was named the country's National Philanthropist of the Year at the luncheon at Ormond Quay in Dublin while Cathal McCarthy won the Local award for his contribution to the Monaghan community.
- Jason O'Brien
Irish Independent
