Philanthropist Chuck Feeney’s aid for Kinsale dementia project

THE late American philanthropist, Chuck Feeney, who died this week at the age of 92, was instrumental in granting €630,000 for a Kinsale project into dementia in 2012. 

Through The Atlantic Philanthropies, which ceased operation in 2020, the charity Genio received funding for the Kinsale Community Response to Dementia (K-Cord), which was operated by Deirdre Cullen and Dr Tony Foley of the Kinsale Medical Centre.

Dr Foley said it was a stand-alone piece of funding which ran for three years.

‘It was a tremendous success and there will be a legacy there due to Chuck’s philanthropy and what he did was quite remarkable,’ he said.

‘We can safely say that Chuck Feeney’s philanthropy really accelerated the development of services and support for people with dementia nationally. He really was the catalyst for the roll-out of the national dementia strategy in 2014, which has then led to huge amount of supports for people with dementia,’ he added.

K-Cord was one of four pilot projects that worked with Genio’s support to develop and evaluate community-based services for people with dementia. 

The project cost €4.3m and was jointly funded by the Department of Health and Feeney’s Atlantic Philanthropies (€2.3m) group.

John Healy, deputy executive director of Genio, said The Atlantic Philanthropies were great to work with. ‘Chuck was an inspirational person who has left a lasting legacy for West Cork, for Cork, and for Ireland,’ he said.