Cultural trailblazer marks 90th birthday with parachute jump

Lelia Doolan is at pains to insist that her tandem parachute jump on May 6 when she will freefall from 13,000 feet at a speed of 200km per hour is “nothing major at all”.

“I have no fear,” she declares to the Connacht Tribune during a road trip to check out Clonbullogue Airfield Edenderry, Co. Offaly.

“I’m not having second thoughts – first thoughts will do. I’m going to be putting my legs up when we land. I’ll be attached to what I hope is a good big lad. If I break some bones, now that would be stupid. I want to be ready for the party.”

She doesn’t mind heights but did have a few hairy vertigo moments on a viaduct in Fermoy known as The Red Bridge during filming The Clash of the Ash with Fergus Tighe.

“I’d be more fearful in a building that’s terribly high. That high bridge scared the living daylights out of me because it wasn’t a proper bridge. I couldn’t care less about this. It’s nothing at all.”

Her gung-ho attitude hasn’t stopped some of her family trying to dissuade her.

“My sister-in-law thinks I shouldn’t do it. But I told her it’s too late to give up. The die is cast. My brother Paddy in France thinks I should practice jumping off the bed. I told him he’s off his trolly. This is going to be easy.”

She wanted to mark her ninth decade with an event that would twin as a fundraiser. Already over €8,000 has been donated to her chosen charity - Médecins Sans Frontières /Doctors Without Borders Ireland (MSF).

To make a donation, log onto https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/LeliaDoolan.

Caption: Lelia Doolan.

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