The Point rallies round Paul Collins — and £100,000 says everything about this town

In May, Paul Collins had just come home from the Mallorca 312 — a 312-kilometre slog with the guts of 4,700 metres of climbing in it — which he’d gone and finished in ten hours. Days later he collapsed and was rushed to hospital.

On 1st May doctors found a mass on his brain. On 14th May it was confirmed as glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Paul is a Warrenpoint man, a husband to Donna and a father to three young girls. If you know the cycling scene round here you’ll know him from Armagh Down Cycling Club, and from the Wicklow 200, the Ring of Kerry and the Dragon Ride in Wales. The man does not do things by halves.

Neither, it turns out, do his friends.

A fundraiser set up by Declan McConville to help Paul get to specialist treatment has passed £100,000. Hundreds of people have put their hand in their pocket. The target has since been lifted to £150,000.

Paul has been finishing a course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy at Belfast City Hospital this month, and has been accepted for dendritic cell therapy — a form of immunotherapy that trains a person’s own immune cells to go after the cancer — at a clinic in Berg in Germany, due to start on 12th August.

I’ll be honest, I’ve read a lot of stories about this town over the years, and the ones that stay with me are never the big announcements. They’re this. A neighbour gets the worst news imaginable and, within weeks, a hundred grand appears because people who know him refused to sit on their hands.

The fundraiser is still open, and every pound of it counts.

You can donate to Paul’s fundraiser here.

Wishing Paul, Donna and the girls every strength over the next few months. The Point is behind you.