A FLOWER farmer in Kerry has donated a huge amount of flowers to nursing homes with the help of Gardaí in a gorgeous display of solidarity.
Yesca's flowers, based in the southwest of the country and run by flower specialist Jiska Healy, had an enormous bloom of tulips this year, in part thanks to the good weather the country was having-- but due to coronavirus restrictions, with no weddings or farmers markets to sell her crop, Jiska was left with fields of flowers that had nowhere to go.
Rather than leave the flowers to bloom and die in the field, or end up on the compost heap, Jiska knew what she had to do.
Writing on her farm's official Facebook page, the specialist said "I knew I had to make a decision."
"I contacted some nursing homes nearby and offered them our flowers. They were delighted to take them and once I heard their stories about how isolated the elderly are at the moment I knew I had made the right decision.
"But the question remained: how to get there?"
With the 2km restrictions in place, and deliveries of flowers not counted as essential work by the Government, Jiska had another idea: she would ask the Gardaí for help.
Jiska appeared on RTÉ's Ireland On Call programme where she recalled the moment she called the Gardaí.
"We called the Gardaí to see if they had a solution," she told the programme.
"And the man I was talking to was like 'hold on a minute', and I heard them discussing in the background. They were like 'yeah, do do do!'"
And so the Gardaí arrived and filled their van to the brim with colourful flowers, ready to drop them off at nursing homes across the county.
One nursing home that received the special delivery was the Ocean View Nursing Home near Tralee, who later wrote on their own Facebook page thanking Jiska and the Gardaí and describing "the smiles, excitement, wonderful colour, scent and atmosphere this has created in our home is beyond words."
One resident, also appearing on RTÉ's Ireland on Call said: "We couldn't wait. I couldn't go for tea. I had my tea down here-- I kept looking out the window to see if I could see them coming!"
Ocean View Nursing HomeKaren Duggan, Director of Nursing at Ocean View, told Ireland On Call that it was "fabulous to have the generosity of the flowers."
"The colours and the scents in the home and the blooms just brightened up the home and it's beautiful.
"But more so than the flowers, what will be remembered is the kindness."
Ocean View Nursing HomeJiska later took to Facebook once more to thank everyone for the "amazing and overwhelming response", saying "we didn't really expect this to happen at all.
"We thought it was just something nice to share with ye but the reactions were phenomenal."
"It's a tough time and the end [sometimes] seems far away, but it will come.
"We might only have lifted the spirits of a few people in isolation, but their reaction and yours have lifted ours."
Ocean View Nursing Home