![\"Carla](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/77MBMFK6O5DQZ4V3TEGAJQ47QM.jpg\")
Carla Murphy with Diana Murphy, Sean Murphy and Isabel Murphy at the National Bravery Awards in Leinster House, Dublin. Photograph: Maxwell Photography\/PA Wire <\/p>\nIn October 2024, 90-year-old Callaghan (Cal) O\u2019Keeffe spotted a car reversing towards a woman in a supermarket car park in Fermoy, Co Cork. <\/p>\n
She was carrying her shopping and the driver, also in his 90s, hadn\u2019t seen her. Cal shouted at the driver and tried to alert the woman to the danger.<\/p>\n
But his efforts weren\u2019t working. As the car moved towards the woman, Cal decided he had to push her out of its direct line. <\/p>\n
Though the woman was still struck by the car and suffered serious injuries, she survived. Cal, having caught the collision full on, was fatally wounded. He was pronounced dead at the scene shortly afterwards. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a lovely man \u2013 very caring, very kind, very interested in people,\u201d said Martin O\u2019Keeffe, Cal\u2019s son. <\/p>\n
On Friday afternoon, Martin collected a gold medal at the National Bravery Awards at Leinster House on behalf of his late father. <\/p>\n
In his career, Cal was a primary school headmaster and a farmer. When he gave up teaching, he continued farming right until the age of 88. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s emotional but we\u2019re very proud as well,\u201d Martin said. <\/p>\n
He described the award as \u201cbittersweet\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very proud that he\u2019s won this and that he\u2019s been honoured in this way,\u201c he said.<\/p>\n
Among the feats of bravery carried out by those other recipients were responses to emergencies involving water, fire, cliffs and a home invasion. <\/p>\n
Last September, Naoise Quinn, an 18-year-old from Cork, managed to prevent a distressed man from jumping off a cliff at the Beacon, Baltimore. <\/p>\n
Seeing him make for the cliff edge, Naoise acted on impulse and \u201cinstinct\u201d, and tackled the man to the ground, attempting to talk to him and calm him down. <\/p>\n
He had to contend with several bouts of struggle as the man broke free of his grip and tried to run back towards the edge. Ultimately, Naoise and his friend Ailise managed to restrain the man until Garda\u00ed arrived. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough to remain calm in that situation,\u201d Naoise says. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe adrenaline is nothing like you\u2019d ever feel. If I let go, he was gone.\u201d <\/p>\n
Carla Murphy with Diana Murphy, Sean Murphy and Isabel Murphy at the National Bravery Awards in Leinster House, Dublin. Photograph: Maxwell Photography\/PA Wire <\/p>\n
The youngest award recipient Carla Murphy, then aged nine, who responded to an intruder attacking her mother at home in Waterford two years ago. <\/p>\n
Carla phoned her father, and despite him telling her to stay in her room, she was so scared for her mother that she opened her door and ran to the kitchen. <\/p>\n
Retrieving a knife from the kitchen drawer, she went upstairs and tried to help free her mother from the attacker. Carla\u2019s mother managed to get her nails into the attacker, and the pair were able to flee the bedroom and house. Garda\u00ed arrested the man a short time later in a neighbouring garden.<\/p>\n
Medal recipients were introduced by ceremony MC Joe Duffy and the Ceann Comhairle, Verona Murphy TD. <\/p>\n
Anyone affected by issues raised in this article can contact Samaritans Ireland on 116 123<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In October 2024, 90-year-old Callaghan (Cal) O\u2019Keeffe spotted a car reversing towards a woman in a supermarket car…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[46,61,60,43,6513],"class_list":["post-177696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-waterford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}