A 70-year-old Irishman living in the Algarve has raised more than €10,000 for the São Brás rehabilitation hospital after walking around 270km from Porto to Santiago de Compostela in just nine days.
John Barrett departed Porto in the north of Portugal on Sunday, February 22 and arrived in Santiago de Compostela in Spain’s Galiza region on Monday, March 2, completing the latest of many charitable walks and bike rides that the Dubliner has embarked on in recent years.
“It was a fantastic walk, with so many beautiful sights,” John told The Resident, just a few days after arriving back home.
Before retiring, John worked as a financial director for a large construction firm in Ireland. He only took up cycling around 10 years ago, but it has become a huge part of his life.
“Cycling allows me to drink Guinness and eat whatever I want,” he said with a laugh.
However, a string of recent injuries – and the desire for something different – led John to take on a new challenge.
The walk was motivated by a desire to raise money for the São Brás rehabilitation hospital – which continues tomake headlines for staff shortages and other alleged insufficiencies – through the recently created Associação Elo de Mudança. The association was founded to promote sport, mobility, accessibility and civic integration for people with disabilities.
One of the people behind the association is Mark Rohan, a retired Irish Paralympic hand-cyclist and double gold medallist at the London 2012 Games who has lived full-time in the Algarve region of Portugal since retiring from professional sport.
A close friend of John’s, the two have worked together on previous charity events, including a four-day cycling challenge which raised over €20,000 for the association.
“Mark is an inspiration to so many people,” John said. “You can’t really complain about having a sore this or that if you look at what he’s been through”.
Mark, who visits the centre twice a week to support the patients there – which John says the gold medallist refers to as his “athletes” – helped inspire John’s latest charitable initiative.
His initial goal was to raise €500, but the total quickly grew after he sent messages to friends and contacts, eventually attracting donations from around 50 to 60 people.
Despite his age, John shows no signs of slowing down and was already back out cycling when The Resident phoned him just days after his Porto-Santiago hike.
He has had a holiday home in the Algarve for 24 years and now lives permanently with his wife in Garrão, between Quinta do Lago and Vale do Lobo. He still flies back to Dublin every few weeks to “visit family and watch rugby”.
