A family are raffling off their "dream house" in Kilkenny to raise money and awareness after their daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia.
Mark Keoghan, originally from the county but living in the UK for a number of years, is selling the home near Freshford in a "unique way".
He is selling raffle tickets for around €5 each in the hopes that 130,000 entries will raise money towards the sale of the house, with 5% of the proceeds for donations to children's charities.
He and his wife Lucy made the decision after their daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia in July.
Molly, who is seven, experienced pain in her arms and legs in March which her parents initially attributed to growing pains.
However, her symptoms got worse and spread to other parts of her body, so she was brought to A&E.
She was brought to hospital on four occasions and would recover from the pain each time en route.
In July, Molly was brought to the emergency department again in July and was told then that she had leukaemia.
Mark told Lunchtime Live that Molly is now in her fourth month of treatment which will take around two and a half years.
He said she is "responding quite well" to the treatment but that her life is "a cocktail of chemotherapy, steroids, morphine and antibiotics".
He said: "She's brilliant, she surprises us all.
"Eleven days in hospital and she took in her stride, she's taking all her medicines, the injections, her lumbar punctures.
"She's a seven-year-old girl, she had lovely long brown hair and her hair began to fall out, that's when it started to bother her.
"After a few weeks, we told her she may have to get her hair cut off, and we let her make the decision.
"One night she was having a bath and she said, 'Mummy, I think it's the time to have my hair shaved off', because it was everywhere.
"She's rocking her new look, she loves wearing bandanas and beanies and thankfully, she doesn't mind going out.
"But she's also in a wheelchair sometimes because the chemo affects how you walk, the bones, so it's not a nice experience and seeing your seven-year-old is not a nice experience."
'My friends think I'm mad'
Mark added that some of his friends think he is mad to raffle of his house, but he said always on the cards that they might not get back to the house in Ireland.
He said: "It's a bit of a unique one, we are raffling our house in order to sell it and to raise awareness of the illness our daughter has, Molly has leukaemia, and in doing so, donate 5% of the funds raised to one or more of the charities that have helped us along the way.
"This year has been horrendous for everyone, with COVID and Molly's diagnosis we thought we need to make some decisions and move forward.
"It was a very hard decision because it was a dream house, I had built it myself, it's a barn on the side of a hill will lovely views, it's quite a unique house.
"It was always the plan to live there, but life has had different plans and we're just thinking, moving forward, where are going to be in the next few years and making ourselves more financially secure and enjoying life with the family because we've had a stark reminder that life can be short and it's precious."
Mark said that while he could have chosen to sell the house quietly with an estate agent, he chose the raffle option in the hope of raising awareness of leukaemia.
He added: "We thought maybe if we do something different, create a bit of a stir, and if we do a raffle, we can also raise money for a children's charity."
People who wish to take part can access the raffle here.
