Rita Casey receives prestigious Mayo Person of the Year award

Charlestown woman Rita Casey has been named Mayo Person of the Year.

Garda Rita Casey was presented the Virginia Gallagher Mayo Person of the Year award winner for 2024 at a reception in Dublin last week.

Speaking to The Mayo News, Rita said the achievement ‘hasn’t hit [her] yet’.

“I can't believe it, I’m really honoured and very humbled by it; especially considering all the people that won the award before” she said.

Seeming surprised at the recognition, she said she is ‘delighted somebody saw [her] worthy’, however, with the obstacles she has overcome, worthy is an understatement.

In September 2017, she discovered a lump in her breast, and a confirmation of breast cancer led to months of gruelling treatment and chemotherapy. 

Rita never complained, and despite losing her hair, she became a positive role model for her three young daughters, and the women of Charlestown on how to approach the biggest battles of life.

Having always been a fan of running, she tried to keep it up to help her mental health during the darkest times, even taking part in her second Dublin City Marathon while in remission. 

She also continued to work in her job in An Garda Siochana.

Running has always been Rita’s release, and despite her cancer diagnosis, she was instrumental in forming the East Mayo Athletics Club where her passion for running extended to the community.

The club now has over 200 members from grandparents to young children, and promotes family running encouraging families to join in various runs and pop-up races across Mayo. 

Each year, the club organises The Colm Horkan Memorial race in memory of Rita’s friend, neighbour, and colleague in An Garda Siochana, Detective Garda Colm Horkan, who was tragically murdered in 2020. 

The past two runs of its kind attracted national and international reach, with virtual runs taking place across the globe. 

The event has raised over €125,000 towards the building of the Colm Horkan Memorial Pitch and walkway in Charlestown. 

Rita has also represented the club and ran in multiple marathons across both Ireland and Mayo, raising funds for cancer charities as both her parents also died from the disease.

In May 2020, after returning from one of her runs, Rita collapsed by her front door. 

She was taken to hospital where they discovered her cancer had returned, and she was tragically told she had stage four inoperable brain and lung cancer. 

Rita had multiple brain tumours, as well as several tumours in both of her lungs. The battle Rita faced was truly insurmountable. 

She endured the most horrendous treatments of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, with no one believing she would be able to walk even 50 metres again, let alone complete a training regime and contemplate another marathon. 

No matter how sick she was feeling, Rita’s motto was: ‘Hit me with it, if it will help me live for my family’. 

Rita's family, husband John Casey, and their three daughters, Ava-Mai (16), Kayleigh (14), and Jenna Eve (10), mean the world to her.

She was eventually placed on a drug treatment trial and gradually became stronger again. 

Despite her new normal of having chemotherapy every three weeks for the rest of her life, she started to walk, and eventually jog, and has worked tirelessly to regain her fitness and stamina to complete short runs.

As Rita became stronger, her love of running enabled her to not let her stage four terminal diagnosis define her.

She decided on the off chance to enter for the Dublin City Marathon one last time in October 2023.  

She wanted to do what she could do to raise awareness and funds for the Mayo Roscommon Hospice, who had been supporting her and the family since her second brain and lung cancer diagnosis.

She set out to raise €500, but in the end raised a staggering €22,300 for the hospice, after completing the marathon in just over four hours.

Additionally, Rita was the recipient of the Lord Mayor of Dublin medal, which is presented to one runner out of the 22,000 participants. 

Rita may have been born a Donegal woman, but Mayo has been her home for over 20 years, and she is a worthy recipient for The Mayo Person of the Year.

“Mayo is a great adoptive county, there's always been great comradery between Donegal and Mayo. I don't know what it is, but the people always got on well” told Rita.

“Then coming to Charlestown, there's such great community spirit here, the people are lovely, it's home from home” she concluded.