A washed-up chair found by volunteers on a beach in Co Wexford has been restored as part of a local mental health initiative.
“It was obvious it had been at sea for a long time,” said Anne Marie Kirwan, who was with Tomhaggard Clean Coasts when they discovered it while clearing debris along Ballyteige Burrow in the summer of 2023.
Ms Kirwan has been a dedicated volunteer with Tomhaggard Clean Coasts since it was first founded almost five years ago.
Despite the chair’s weather-beaten appearance – “the wood had been badly damaged by the seawater” – it was found in one piece, standing upright and pointing towards the waves.
READ MORE
It caused “great excitement” among the group when it was discovered by Ms Kirwan’s brother, Alan Davis, “on a remote stretch of the beach, around 5km from the nearest village”.
Mr Davis described the scene as “one of those striking images that screamed isolation, and resonated with post-Covid feelings of aloneness and separation.”
“But, on the other side of despair, it harboured freedom that the outdoors offered to people, and a chance to get away from the rat race and pre-Covid normalcy,” he added
They left it in the hands of a local company, Springtime Upholstery, which gave the chair a new lease of life.
After being reupholstered with ocean-blue velour fabric and the wood treated with Danish oil, the chair looked as good as new.
For Ms Kirwan, its transformation since being “taken in by the community and given a little TLC” offers an important story of hope and resilience.
Tomhaggard Clean Coasts decided to give it a permanent new home, donating the restored chair to the mental health charity It’s Good 2 Talk. It now sits in their premises in Wexford town, as both a welcome and a symbol of recovery.
Madeleine Quirke, the mental health charity’s chairperson, said both organisations shared “an ethos of protecting and caring”.
In undertaking this project together, Ms Quirke hopes it can offer “a beacon of light for those of us who do not enjoy good mental health”.
The chair’s transformation, she said, marked “a beautiful ending to a very turbulent and uncertain journey”.
Since being established in 2021, Tomhaggard Clean Coasts has grown to include around 80 members. The group has adopted a 25km stretch of the south Wexford coastline from Carnsore to Cullenstown.
In 2025 so far, Ms Kirwan said they have removed more than 16 tonnes of waste from these beaches. This larger-than-usual haul is the result of a big “black spot” with historic waste which was tackled this summer.
It is not the first time the group has found an unexpected item washed ashore.
“We always find something different,” says Ms Kirwan.
Other unusual discoveries have included a message in a bottle from Wales and seeds originating from South and Central America. The seeds were also found on Ballyteige Burrow and have been planted at Johnstown Castle.
While the chair’s origins are unknown, members of the cleaning group suspect it may once have been secured to the deck of a boat, having spotted a fitting underneath the seat.
It will be displayed in the window of Specsavers in Wexford town on Friday, to mark world Mental Health Day.
