A RELATIVE of former showband musician Mickey Doran is to climb Snowdon to raise funds for a dementia charity after he was diagnosed with the condition.
Seainin Doran, daughter-in-law of the ex-Hilton Showband lead guitarist, will take on the challenge of hiking the highest mountain in Wales in May.
Ms Doran said she wants to raise awareness of dementia and gather funds for a charity that supports people with the condition, like her 82-year-old father-in-law.
"It's really hard to watch someone you love so dearly start to lose their memory," she said.
"And everyday lose a little bit of their character and personality. So this is for him and for everybody else's family member who suffers from this disease or who has lost family member from this horrendous illness."
One of Co Down’s best-known musicians, Mr Doran from Newry was the lead guitarist in the Hilton Showband throughout the boom era, playing to packed houses across Ireland, the UK and the US.
Although the band called it a day in recent times after almost half a century on the road, the grandfather still did charity appearances.
Two years ago as he celebrated his 80th birthday, Mr Doran looked back on some of the highlights of his music career.
Speaking to The Irish News in 2019, he recalled how he played "five nights a week for about 20 years" at the height of the band's success in the 1960s and 1970s, but that his biggest highlight was being introduced to Tom Jones at the Flamingo Ballroom in Ballymena.
"We were on before Tom Jones and I had played the boogie shuffle," he said.
"Tom was very impressed with it and he sent a request for me to go and get my photo taken with him, which I did."
Ms Doran, who is originally from Newry but now lives in Leeds, said her father-in-law had been diagnosed with dementia during the pandemic and had "begun to go down hill".
"We has got so bad recently, we were on a visit home in October and he couldn't remember our daughter, his granddaughter," she said.
"It's so sad to see as he's always been such a big personality.
"Bless him, when we were back home, we put on the showbands on from the 1960s and he was asking, 'who's that playing the guitar' and I said, 'that's you Mickey'."
Ms Doran (29) said she was taking on Snowdon - which reaches a peak of 1,085 metres - to raise funds for Alzheimers UK.
"We are quite an active family, I spent my childhood on the Mourne Mountains and climbing trees," she said.
"I enjoy mountain climbing, hiking, trekking, and bouldering indoor and outdoors so I decided to do this challenge to raise awareness and support for this charity.
"Twice a week I go bouldering and I'm doing lots of climbing and walking and get out on the moors to prepare me for the challenge.
For information, please visit justgiving.com/fundraising/Seainin-Doran.
