FUNDRAISER: Tara Cronin, pictured with Darkness into Light colleague Fiona Geoghegan, was behind an online concert for Pieta House and ICAP last week.

By Sean Moriarty

A Killarney woman was one of the driving forces behind a London online concert last week that raised over €3,500 for Pieta House.

Tara Cronin, who is originally from Aghadoe, is the Chairperson of the London Darkness into Light Walk, and the charity partners with Immigrant Counselling and Psychotherapy (ICAP) in London, an Irish government-funded mental health charity for Irish people in the UK.

Tara is also ICAP's fundraising and event manager.

The annual Darkness Into Light charity walk is the prime fundraiser on both sides of the Irish Sea, but this year’s walks, which were scheduled for May 10, have now been postponed until early October.

Tara and her friend, well-known London Irish musician Paul Rooney, who performs under the name of 'Slim Attraction', decided to put on a live concert via Facebook.

They asked each member of the virtual audience, which reached an average of 500 viewers per hour, to donate to the charity. A total of £3,130 or €3,517 was raised by the London Irish community.

“It was Slim’s idea as he saw Nathan Carter do a similar thing and he is friends with Nathan through his music connections,” Tara told the Killarney Advertiser. “I got it all set up on the Pieta House side and all the money that was raised will go towards ICAP and help Irish people in London that need our services.”

The London Darkness into Light walk which was first run in 2013, was one of the first overseas walks to take place.