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Local Hero 2022

The Goss.ie Women of the Year Awards will take place on Sunday, October 9th at The Royal Marine Hotel Dun Laoghaire, with broadcaster Gráinne Seoige as host.

We will honour women across multiple genres, including business, the arts, social justice and sports. Plus we have launched a special ‘Local Hero’ category, where Goss.ie readers can nominate local women in their area.

This year the awards are in partnership with Google, Casillero del Diablo, Woulfe and Dingle Distillery. 

Women’s Aid is our official charity partner for 2022 and will be delivering a keynote speech at the awards, we will also be running a charity raffle on the day to raise funds for the charity.

A highly-esteemed and all-female judging panel will decide the winners of each category.

This year we have created a special category called ‘Local Hero’, where Goss.ie readers have nominated inspiring women in their life.

Whether it’s a frontline worker who sacrificed so much during the pandemic, or a woman who has turned her trauma into something positive, there are so many unsung heroes throughout Ireland.

We have shortlisted five nominees, after receiving over 100 applications from family members, loved ones, and neighbours, who all felt these women deserved to be honoured.

See our nominees below:

Geraldine Mullan

Nominated by her people in her community, Geraldine Mullan has been hailed as an inspiration in both her local community and nationwide.

In 2020, Geraldine’s entire life changed when she lost her husband John and her two children Tomas and Amelia when their car plunged into a river in Donegal. Geraldine was the only family member to survive.

Gerladine, who works in the Oncology Ward of Letterkenny University Hospital, has strived to honour their memory every day. She has already set up the Mullan Hope Centre (Hub Of Positive Energy) in her hometown of Moville in Donegal for the local community.

It holds Farmers’ Markets and numerous community events. Geraldine also recently created the Field of Hope, a field in Donegal filled with 250,000 sunflowers which she, along with the farmer who owns the land and groups in the local community, opened up for a weekend to mark the 2nd anniversary of John, Tomas and Amelia’s deaths.

15,000 people visited over the weekend of their anniversary and many spoke of the beautiful feeling of hope and togetherness that it brought them.

Geraldine herself spoke of how she found joy in seeing families together at the field, with many in the community praising her for her strength and dedication to positivity even in the most harrowing of circumstances.

Nominated by her friends, Charlene Masterson has been praised for her unrelenting bravery after waiving her right to anonymity and telling her story of sexual assault and rape.

Charlene was in court last year prosecuting her father, who had sexually abused his daughter over a 7½-year period after first blackmailing her, he received a 17-year prison sentence.

During the court case Charlene delivered a harrowing victim impact statement. Charlene also spent time educating herself on on domestic violence awareness, advocating for more freely available information on rape, sexual assault and domestic abuse in Ireland.

Since waiving her right to anonymity Charlene has given interviews on RTE, including The Late Late Show, and set up an Instagram page called Survivors Voice, a platform for women who are going through similar traumas to message Charlene anonymously.

Charlene has also partnered with the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and raised thousands in donations.

Lariche Mandiangu

Nominated by her sister and other family members, Lariche Mandiangu was just a young child when her parents fled the Congo in 1995 to give her and her siblings a better life in Ireland.

Arriving in Ireland with no English, Lariche quickly learned the language to help her parents, and took on the responsibility of minding her four siblings while her mother and father worked to put food on the table.

Since then, Lariche has continued to go above and beyond to support her family, and help those in her local community.

Earlier this year, Lariche and her husband Gary, who you may recognise from Gogglebox Ireland, were brutally attacked in Dublin’s city centre by a group of boys.

The mother-of-three sustained facial injuries and lost 4 fingernail beds from trying to fight off their attackers, and was left traumatised after the incident.

The attack left Lariche terrified to leave her home, and she struggled to sleep at night as she replayed what happened in her head.

Despite her own struggles, Lariche still managed to be there for everyone else around her, and earlier this year she organised a charity football fundraiser.

The event helped raise money for the eight-year-old son of Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley, who was diagnosed with leukemia in June.

Sinead Hingston-Green

Nominated especially by her husband, Sinead Hingston-Green has experienced much heartbreak over the past 11 years, but she has continued to use her trauma to help others.

Back in 2011, she was 19 weeks pregnant with her first child, Lily, when her husband Geoff suddenly died while they were on holiday in Portugal.

Just over two years later, Sinead met her now-husband Michael Green, and the couple welcomed a son named Dylan in January 2018.

At the end of 2019, Sinead and Michael decided to try for another baby, but they sadly suffered four miscarriages back to back during Covid lockdowns, meaning Sinead had to attend many appointments and procedures alone – like so many other women across the country.

Sinead has been widely praised for sharing her story on Instagram, and encouraging others to speak openly about grief, baby loss and miscarriage.

In 2021, Sinead fell pregnant again, and started a movement called Spark A Life, where women light a candle every day of their pregnancy to stay positive.

She now sells a range of candles under the Spark A Life name, and donates all of the proceeds to miscarriage and fertility charities across the country.

Just last year, she raised enough money to be able to donate a top of the range ultrasound machine to the TLC clinic in the National Maternity Hospital.

Sinead welcomed her rainbow baby, a son named Alby, in December 2021, and continues to support women experiencing pregnancy loss on social media.

Paula McCormack

Nominated by her sister, Public Health Nurse Paula McCormack is one of many women who worked on the frontline during the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the stress of her role and dealing with the unknown, the Tipperary native went the extra mile by launching a fundraiser to buy iPads for local hospitals and nursing homes in 2020.

After seeing firsthand how patients couldn’t see their families during such a difficult time in hospital, Paula sought to get iPads for hospitals and nursing homes so patients who had poor vision could call their families on a bigger screen.

Paula helped provide iPads to hospitals like St. Luke’s in Kilkenny, and the South Tipperary General Hospital in Clonmel, to name a few.

On top of this, Paula, who has been described as a “selfless person”, organised care hampers for local nursing homes at the height of the pandemic.

When healthcare workers were crying out for PPE in 2020, Paula also handmade cotton face masks for community nurses all over Ireland, and delivered them to the respective health centres for free.

EUROSPAR may have an international heritage, but it thinks locally.

All of its supermarkets are locally owned and EUROSPAR supermarket owners are usually longstanding members of the community. EUROSPAR also supports local suppliers and producers and makes every effort possible to deliver the best quality, freshest foods to its customers. EUROSPAR is known to be ‘famous for fresh’.

EUROSPAR supermarkets and its retailers are at the heart of local communities around Ireland, family-run businesses committed to servicing the local neighbourhood.

EUROSPAR retailers focus on six key elements – the best fresh foods; giving its shoppers the best value; rewarding them for shopping with EUROSPAR; stocking product ranges that its shoppers want; providing exceptional customer service and the best possible shopping experience.

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