Loving brother focusing only on the good news after sister’s virus recovery

A BUDDING young reporter from Clonmellon who was worried that his sister was going to die from coronavirus started his own weekly ‘good news project’ focusing on all of the positive things happening in his community to keep his family’s spirits up during the crisis.

Killian Moore (9) was distraught when his sister Kaytie (18) became ill with Covid-19, but after some reassurance from mum Joy that the teenager was going to be fine, the youngster decided to document the many good will gestures in his community in contrast to the constant flow of depressing news reports that was starting to have an affect on the kind-hearted boy.

The nine-year-old has compiled an impressive collection of colourful laminated news stories, art work and even a special time capsule documenting his family’s experience during the pandemic.

His sister Kaytie, a leaving cert student in Eureka in Kells made a full recovery from Covid-19 but Killian has kept up the good work according to mum Joy.

“When Kaytie got sick I found him in the bathroom crying, when I asked him what was wrong he said, ‘is my sister going to die?’

“It really affected him and in his head he thought that anyone that gets it is going to die.

“When Killian finished school he had a lot of false information that he had been told by friends that they had seen on TV and I said Killian that’s not right maybe you should look into getting papers and doing your own reports and he started writing up his own little reports of what was going on.

“I thought that if I was to give him the positive stuff in the papers he’d see the communities coming together and what the Gardai are doing and the doctors and nurses.

“He’d see all the people that are getting well and getting released from hospital and we could put a more positive vibe on it.

“It was a good way to keep tabs on him because he hadn’t spoken to me about his worries.

“From there he might see a local shopkeeper helping out the elderly or he’d see a Garda he might know and people in his area helping each other so he’d put all of those things in his stories.”

Killian is saving all of this accounts so he can show future generations what it was like living through an important part of history as Joy, a healthcare assistant in The Respiratory Emergency Department in Mullingar Hospital.

“He writes his weekly report and puts everything into a special folder because he says he doesn’t want to use it as a time capsule now, he’s going to keep it in the folder so when he’s an old man he can show his grandchildren because they’ll be doing it for the leaving cert.

“Since being in lockdown he’s learned how to do gardening and be a baker and now a little reporter!”