A local Mooncoin family will take centre stage on the latest episode of RT\u00c9\u2019s DIY SOS: The Big Build Ireland, as their story is shared with the nation.<\/p>\n
Nine-year-old Aoibh\u00ednn O\u2019Hanlon, who lives in Mooncoin with her parents Sharon and John and her two younger siblings, was born with a severe form of spina bifida \u2014 a condition where a baby\u2019s spine and spinal cord don\u2019t fully develop in the womb, leaving a gap in the spine.<\/p>\n
Aoibh\u00ednn also lives with hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid deep within the brain. She is paralysed from the waist down and had a shunt fitted to help drain the fluid from her brain.<\/p>\n
The new episode sees Baz Ashmawy and his dedicated team of builders and volunteers from across Ireland come together to give the O\u2019Hanlon family a helping hand \u2014 and a home that meets Aoibh\u00ednn\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
Sharon told the programme she realised there was \u201csomething wrong\u201d during her 21-week scan while pregnant with Aoibh\u00ednn. Her daughter arrived four weeks early, weighing just 2.5kg.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe aftermath then, going down to the basement of Holles Street and seeing her little body,\u201d recalled John.
\u201cThat was hard. I remember just sitting on the floor in there. I was literally floored and I just said, how do we fix her?\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the years, the family faced huge challenges trying to raise the funds needed to build a suitable home for Aoibh\u00ednn. To save money, they moved in with John\u2019s parents, Tom and Helen O\u2019Hanlon, in Mooncoin. But the house quickly became overcrowded, filled with wheelchairs, commodes, a stander and other essential equipment.<\/p>\n
What was meant to be a short stay of a few months stretched into 18 months before the DIY SOS team stepped in.<\/p>\n
After securing a small mortgage, the O\u2019Hanlons bought a site locally, and Aoibh\u00ednn\u2019s grandfather Mick \u2014 a construction worker since the age of 17 \u2014 took on the huge task of starting the self-build.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad has been in construction since he was about 17,\u201d Sharon said.
\u201cI don\u2019t think he quite expected to be down there 12 hours a day, seven days a week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat choice do you have? Like, we\u2019re going to have to get the house done. It would have been moving in with just the bare bones of a house, and not remotely accessible for Aoibh\u00ednn, which was exactly the whole point of why we wanted the house in the first place, for Aoibh\u00ednn.\u201d<\/p>\n
The heartwarming episode featuring the O\u2019Hanlon family from Mooncoin airs this Sunday at 6.30pm on RT\u00c9 One and on the RT\u00c9 Player.<\/p>\n
For the latest Waterford\u00a0News<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Sport<\/a>,<\/a>\u00a0tune into WLR News on the hour and download the WLR App for news on demand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A local Mooncoin family will take centre stage on the latest episode of RT\u00c9\u2019s DIY SOS: The Big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[50190,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-76440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-diy-sos","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76440","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=76440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}