Guitar show raises money for children’s cancer charity home

Guitar show raises money for children’s cancer charity home

2 July 2014

GUITAR students have helped raise over £500 for the Daisy Lodge complex in Newcastle. The young people are all students of Mona Owens who staged a special guitar show on Sunday, June 22, at Hillyard House in Castlewellan, to raise money for the centre, which is run the the NI Cancer Fund for Children (NICFC).

One of the highlights of the show was the presentation of the Niall Rice Music Award to the top students. Niall was Mona’s nephew who sadly died four years ago.

A special award was made to honour Niall’s memory by celebrated Downpatrick guitar maker, George Lowden who attended the event to present the award with Mona.

Niall’s wife, Marian, along with his mother and father, Rose-Marie and Terry, were also present at the event and were delighted with the award.

The winners of the award this year were Sorcha McDonagh, of St. Malachy’s Primary School, Castlewellan, and Eoin Mussen of St. Malachy’s Primary School, Kilcoo.

Mona would like to thank all the local and business people in Castlewellan for selling tickets. She would especially like to thank John Farry, manager of Nathan Carter who gave first prize of two tickets to Nathan’s show in the Waterfront in October; Denis Orr, of the Burrendale Hotel, who contributed a meal for two; Kim Moynahan for creating a very special Daisy Lodge cake; Gillian Greevy, the chief executive of NICFC, and Joan Burden, of Daisy Lodge, who presented certificates to each child.

The children sang a song especially written by Mona to celebrate the opening of Daisy Lodge.

Mona wishes to thank Dominic King, manager of Hilliard House and his staff for the beautiful food and the lovely warm welcome they gave everyone.

The winners of the raffle were 1st: James Hunt, 2nd: P. F. McCann, 3rd: Fiona Boyd.