Rathangan celebrity Brian Dowling vows to honour late mother’s memory with ‘Run for Rosie’ event later this month

By Kim O'Leary

Big Brother winner and Rathangan native Brian Dowling has vowed to honour his beloved mother Rosie’s memory with a ‘Run for Rosie’ event in the town later this month.

A year ago this month, television personality Brian Dowling received the shocking news that his mother Rosie had died suddenly. Brian was in Los Angeles at the time and faced a long journey home to Rathangan, where he was told his mother had died of Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS).

This week, Brian Dowling and his sister Michelle told The Ray D’Arcy Show on Tuesday that their late mother Rosie had been ‘healthy and full of life’ before her sudden passing.

Rosie Dowling, a native of Newtown in Rathangan, was aged just 61 when she suddenly passed away on February 21, 2018. She had seven children and seven grandchildren with another on the way before her untimely death.

Michelle Dowling said that autopsy revealed that their mother had been in extraordinary health for her age. She said: “I mean, up to the day she died,[she] lived a normal, healthy life. Full of life, to put it mildly. Home is still very much home…the difference is that Mam’s not standing by the cooker.”

Meanwhile, Brian expressed his sadness that he had been working abroad at the time of his beloved mother’s death, saying: “I was thinking to myself if only she had have waited until I was there…because maybe then I could have gotten a chance to say goodbye.”

The Dowling family want to honour Rosie’s memory and they are now hoping to raise funds for the Mater Family Screening Clinic with the ‘Run for Rosie’ event, a family day event a family fun day featuring a 3K buggy dash and a 5k or 10k fun run or walk.

The ‘Run for Rosie’ event will take place from 10am-3pm in Rathangan on Sunday, February 24 and all proceeds will go to the Mater Family Screening Clinic.

For more information and to donate visit the GoFundMe page.