Local Faces: Samantha Griffin

AS PART of The Echo celebrating 46 years, we’re celebrating you, and local faces and places. Over the last six years we’ve shared the stories of local people, and remind ourselves of the great community spirit alive across local areas. This week, Ken Doyle talks to Samantha Griffin from the Fettercairn Health Project.

THIS week, we return to beautiful, leafy, verdant Tallaght to meet a woman who has spent her life trying, against all the odds, to provide health education to people in our parish who need it.

Samantha Griffin is her name and her early life reads like so many others from that time, born in Ballyfermot, moved to Ballymun and then out to Jobstown.

She recalls her earliest days in Jobstown with a laugh, “in the Ballymun Flats we had this amazing system for central heating.

‘I moaned my first six months there! ‘it’s too cold, ‘it’s in the mountains,’ ‘there’s nothing here!’ we’re in the middle of nowhere and so on!” “I’m pleased to say I eventually loved the place and had a great childhood up there!”

In the very early days, school consisted of umpteen bus rides to there and back until Killinarden Community School finally opened and she went there until it was time to leave and take on the world.

School finished, Samantha made the move so many people did and got a job in Glen Abbey. A couple of years there were enough and she moved on to become a sales assistant at some fancy boutiques in the City Centre.

The then twenty year old Samantha though, was soon to have the Christmas present of a lifetime, her eldest son Aaron.

Anyway, life became substantially more tricky and tragically Samantha lost her poor mother to cancer at only forty-four years of age.

The family had been Eileen (mother) then Derek the eldest boy then Samantha and then David.

Just when things seemed as though they were falling apart, Derek (who was a decorated Navy and Air Corps man Samantha says he was her Irish Twin) stepped up, did the necessary and became de facto head on the household.

His younger siblings loved him and they now find themselves grieving again as cancer took Derek away from us early this year.

Having had a long conversation with Samantha, I can tell you one thing, Derek’s name won’t be forgotten in a hurry.

But back to our heroine, she decided she would start again.

This time in Clondalkin and I’m happy to tell you that she lives there still. She hopped around various jobs before she had a brainwave, “maybe I should go to college.”

“I never thought I’d have the ability for college but I did a three and a half year CE scheme doing Youth Work and I absolutely loved it.

‘My colleagues in Ballyfermot were very supportive and gave me the confidence to do it, so I did an Addiction Studies course which was Level 5 and then the Levels 7 and 8 at Maynooth. I don’t want seem like a bighead but I passed them all with flying colours.”

It was really important to me to go to third level education to enable me to get a better job for the family, not just me.

Soon it was time to put what Samantha learned to the test and she worked for four years at Peter McVarry House, a national housing and homeless charity committed to reducing homelessness and the harm caused by substance misuse and social disadvantage.

Talk about in at the deep end Samantha did the work with her customary aplomb.

In fact Samantha only left the trust to go on and complete her Degree at An Cosán in Tallaght.

Degree in hand, she went on to Eve New Horizon in Tallaght.

She loved working there but unfortunately she was only covering maternity leave so it was short and sweet.

She went on to work with Roma Housing, supporting the Roma Community with any health problems they may be suffering from.

Eventually she got the dream job which had eluded her, a job with the Fettercairn Tallaght Health Project under the auspices of South Dublin County Partnership.

Of course Samantha, being Samantha, she rolled her sleeves up and got stuck in.

“Well just at the start we set up endeavors such as Yoga, Living Well with Chronic Conditions and many more.

‘I’m also Coordinator for We Can Quit for Tallaght East and Tallaght West, a proven programme to get people off the damned fags once and for all.”

“One of the best parts of my job is the demystification of ‘Doctor Speak,’ for the locals I serve. Doctors, when not checked, can have a habit of high-handedness and speak over people. Well not around me they don’t!” She laughs.

Samantha is also at the heart of innumerable health fairs and groups which take place all over Tallaght.

We’re running out of space so I’ll list as many as I can. She has been directly involved with either on her own or with the Partnership, all manner of health days, weeks and months in Tallaght.

She also runs the aforementioned Health Literacy programme, a COPD support group, Pink October for victims and survivors of Breast Cancer and many, more initiatives throughout the year.

When she gets home it doesn’t get any easier for our heroine.

Her grown up children have given her two grandchildren, 11 year old Zack and Pippa who’s four.

They’re Aaron’s children and  Daughter Amber is about to supply another little angel into the house any day now.

As our conversation drew to a close, I happened to ask where was the nearest GP to where she worked.

“Oh there’s no GP practicing in Fettercairn,” she said. I don’t mind telling you reader, my flabber was truly ghasted.

Don’t worry though, with a lady like Samantha on the case, it can only be a matter of time.