The county and the country have opened their hearts to help a couple who have been hit with two of the hardest blows imaginable – because their one-year-old daughter needs a lifesaving bone marrow transplant just weeks after their three-year-old daughter died from the same genetic condition.

Little Éabha Duggan is currently in the Dutch city of Utrecht at Prinses Máxima Centrum, undergoing tests ahead of a bone marrow transplant.

That’s because this highly specialised treatment is not currently available in Ireland – so travelling to this world-leading specialist children’s hospital in the Netherlands was the only option.

Éabha’s big sister, Saoirse, had been diagnosed with leukaemia in late 2023 and underwent a bone marrow transplant in February 2024 – but while the initial prognosis was so positive, the cancer returned earlier this year.

But she tragically passed away on June 15 from this same rare condition that resulted in her own battle with leukaemia.

The grief has been almost impossible to bear for Éabha’s mam Martina, who is originally from Eyrecourt, and her dad, Tommy, is from Bekan, a small village between Knock and Ballyhaunis in Co Mayo.

And having had so little time to even mourn the loss of their little girl Saoirse, they now face another massive battle as their one-year-old daughter begins the same fight for her own life – not to mention a massive cost.

Because while the HSE will pay the cost of the transplant itself, the family are already in Holland and they will be there for some time afterwards, with – all going well – Eabha needing constant monitoring for some considerable time to come.

So to help them on their long road ahead, Martina’s sister, Anne Marie Kenny, and her friend Louise Clarke set up a GoFundMe page less than two weeks ago called Together for Eabha – and it has already more than tripled its target of €40,000.

This week it had surpassed €121,000 and rising with donations pouring in from all corners, as the Duggans’ story touched the hearts of the nation and beyond.

Caption: Éabha Duggan.

Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play. If you want to contribute to Together for Eabha, just go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/together-for-eabha-duggan-mayobonemarrowtransplant.