BARNEY Curley was honoured for his charitable work with Direct Aid For Africa on Thursday night with a special dinner in Leinster House, Ireland’s Houses of Parliament.

He is the second winner of the Human Dignity Award which is given by members of the Oireachtas (both the Dáil and Seanad) group which promotes discussion about the importance of respecting human dignity at all stages of life.

Curley, 76, was born in Irvinestown, Co Fermanagh and many members of his family, the racing community, clergy and others gathered to see him presented with the award. He cofounded DAFA in 1997 following the death of his son Charlie in a car crash. This traumatic incident led to Barney visiting Zambia to see the work done in missionary-run schools and hospitals and to his continuing work in this area. To date he has raised some €7 million.

Interviewed at the dinner by Alan Byrne of the Racing Post, Curley spoke about his work for the charity and recalled some of his career in racing too. He ended his contribution with a plea for people to “think about the other person”.

While being coy about the actual amount – or the currency he was speaking about – he said that his winnings from the successful coups of 2010 and 2014 were “about six million overall”, indicating that the first coup may have been the more successful.

A man with a colourful past, Curley enjoys being coy and entertained guests at the dinner with tales of selling raffle tickets for Middleton Park near Mullingar and facing trial for this. Pressed to reveal how much he made on the sale of the tickets for a property said to have been worth IR£400,000, he replied it “was a lot more than 400,000!”

In addition to successful coups such as the Yellow Sam affair at Bellewstown 40 years ago, which was celebrated earlier this year, he also once backed himself to train 10 winners in a short time frame after he had his licence to train restored. Assuming that he had no firepower in his yard, he got odds easily. Byrne asked him how he managed the feat. His one word reply was “easily”.

Among the many in attendance at the dinner to celebrate this award were Jessica and Kate Harrington, Tommy and Liz Stack, Johnny Murtagh, Jim and Jackie Bolger, John and Caitriona Oxx, Frank and Liz Barry, Nick and Alice Nugent, Ted and Helen Walsh, Eimear Mulhern, Dermot and Meta (Osborne) Cantillon, Joe Osborne, Stewart Kenny and Tom Monaghan.

Speaking on Thursday the Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett said: “Barney Curley is in many ways an unlikely hero. Here is a man who is transforming countless lives through tireless fundraising for some of the world’s most underprivileged people. That deserves to be celebrated and honoured.”

Curley was proposed for the award by the Independent Senator Rónán Mullen who said: “Barney is long overdue an award for his creative approach to work and his single-minded dedication to the least fortunate people in the world. He has used his unusual and intriguing talent for the most noble of purposes, helping others.”

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