The Listening Walk arrives locally to visit Samaritans of Kilkenny and Carlow

One man’s bid to walk to 201 Samaritan branches across the UK and Ireland continues locally today.

David Matthews, who’s volunteered with the organisation for over 12 years, has spent the last two on a 6,000 mile stretch which can be followed via his online channels The Listening Walk. (Read about that here and donate here).

Last evening he reached Mullinavat where he spent the night and from where he heads off this morning. He told KCLR News “I’m heading north towards Kilkenny today, it looks like I’m following probably the old road from Waterford towards Kilkenny, that’s the route, it’s about 18 miles I think, I’ll walk straight to the branch I should think I’ll be there ’round about sortof 3 maybe 3:30, something like that, I don’t know what to expect there’s maybe one or two people who’ll walk out to meet me and walk maybe the last mile or so or maybe I’ll just arrive and there’ll be a few people there and I’ll put my feet up, have a cuppa tea and a biscuit”.

The Samaritans of Kilkenny and Carlow (contact details here) is his 187th to get to with his next in Arklow.

David says he has a good reason for carrying out the feat, noting “It’s such a great charity, it’s the only charity that’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week where people can call if they’re feeling sad or distressed or even suicidal and there’ll be somebody there to listen to them and I think that’s such a special thing and when I’d been volunteering a few years for Samaritans I used to read this Samaritans news, it’s like an internal newsletter, and I used to read about all these people doing these incredible things to raise funds and awareness and I kept thinking ‘I ought to do something'”.

Meanwhile, Sue Nunn caught up with him on The Way It Is last evening – for a more in-depth outline of what he’s doing and why listen here: