Huge effort at Galway as 70 volunteers are on hand to help support Ukraine

Galway does not usually come alive until the seven-day bonanza kicks off in late July, but racecourse manager Michael Moloney revealed a good reason why Ballybrit has been a hive of activity over the past fortnight.

The racecourse has been operating as a storage unit for the past two weeks with a large team of volunteers sifting through donated goods bound for the Ukrainian border in Poland to aid those affected by the war.

Moloney said: "It has been pretty lively here for the past few days. Three articulated lorries have already left for Poland and another two are going today. There are more to go as well. It's pretty impressive work that has been done over the past couple of weeks.

"When you watch what's going on in Ukraine on the news, it's pretty harrowing and anything we can do to even slightly support these people is obviously worth doing.

"The community in Galway have really rallied around and done brilliant work. It started off with a local Polish supermarket that asked for some donations and they were quickly overrun with the amount of boxes they received."

When Moloney first approached the volunteers behind the Polish supermarket, he did not expect the ground floor of his grandstand to be overflowing with donated goods and he has praised the community for their relief work.

He explained: "We offered them a space out here and after showing them a small room for storage at first, it wasn't long before they were moved into a larger area before taking over the whole bottom floor of the grandstand.

"In two buildings, there was a full warehouse operation here over the past fortnight. Everything from phone chargers, nappies, coats and food were donated and it was a massive effort by everyone to sort through everything."

Moloney added: "This started with the Polish supermarket. A lorry comes in from there every week with their produce and while it normally goes back empty, they decided to fill it up with supplies to help the Ukrainian people.

"The support from business owners, courier companies and people in the locality has been phenomenal. People have been here from early in the morning until late at night and there have been days where we’ve had sixty or seventy volunteers getting everything packed up and ready to go."

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