![\"Executive](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/00246468-614.jpg\"\/)
\nSarah O’Toole said the Samaritans are ‘always here to listen’<\/p>\n
The Samaritans supported 1,200 people attending festivals and events last year.<\/p>\n
The volunteer-led organisation helped people cope with mental health, loneliness and isolation as part of its outreach work at live events in 2025.<\/p>\n
Its festival team attended sporting, music and cultural events, like North West 200, Pride, Lisdoonvarna, the Fleadh, Electric Picnic and more recently the Ballinasloe Fair.<\/p>\n
People attending larger events over a number of days can “feel alone in the crowd” and the Samaritans say the team provides a “face-to-face listening service”.<\/p>\n
When the festival team celebrated 21 years in 2019, an estimated 25,000 men and women had been supported by volunteers.<\/p>\n
Over 1,500 volunteers who are part of the wider organisation provided 70,000 hours of emotional support to people who sought help from the charity last year.<\/p>\n
They answered almost 350,000 calls for help which was the equivalent of 1,000 calls a day according to its 2025 Impact Report, which has been published this morning.<\/p>\n
Concerns raised by callers echoed many of those expressed to outreach teams at events, including mental health, loneliness and isolation.<\/p>\n
Many people also raised family issues with volunteers.<\/p>\n
Samaritans Ireland Executive Director Sarah O’Toole said that behind each call, email, or conversation, someone is looking for a connection, often in their most difficult hour.<\/p>\n
“It is thanks to the dedication of our amazing volunteers, staff, and supporters that we are always here to listen,” she said.<\/p>\n
\nSarah O’Toole said the Samaritans are ‘always here to listen’<\/p>\n
Ms O’Toole also stressed the importance of young people knowing about the emotional supports available as festival season kicks off.<\/p>\n
“We will be at several major events over the summer to support those struggling to cope,” she said.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Samaritans opened its 25th site on the island of Ireland in Monaghan town.<\/p>\n
It was also involved in the development of a toolkit published by the National Office of Suicide Prevention to create awareness and put preventative measures in place at locations where tragedies have occurred.<\/p>\n
Most recent figures from the CSO show 500 people died by suicide in 2022.<\/p>\n
Over a third of all the men who died aged 20\u201324, were due to suicide that year, the highest rate of any male age cohort.<\/p>\n
Helpline: Samaritans provides confidential support, 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n
Web: www.samaritans.ie
Helpline: 116 123
Support Email: jo@samaritans.ie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Samaritans supported 1,200 people attending festivals and events last year. The volunteer-led organisation helped people cope with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-458011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458011","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=458011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}