It's time for an oasis of calm A New Life

When he discovered he had cancer, business consultant Joseph Daly decided to set up a place for people to take time out to relax…

When he discovered he had cancer, business consultant Joseph Daly decided to set up a place for people to take time out to relax, writes Michelle McDonagh

Most of us, if given the shattering news that we were suffering from terminal cancer and had six months to live, would simply throw in the towel - but business consultant Joseph Daly is using the experience to fulfil a dream he has had for some time.

As a man who had direct personal experience of trying to balance a very busy career, family life, excessive travelling and non-stop motion, Daly had been thinking for some time about the need for a place where people (like himself) could go to escape from the world for short periods to stop and think about their lives.

It was last September that Daly (46) received the devastating diagnosis that the stomach ulcer he was being treated for was actually a rare form of cancer and his doctors gave him only six months to live.

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While he respects the medical opinion of his doctors, Daly feels that no person can tell him how long he has to live.

He has an extremely positive mental attitude, a strong spirituality and a very good role model in his wife, Ria, who beat cancer 15 years ago.

Originally from Longwood, Co Meath, Daly went off to see the world after leaving school and ended up staying away for 25 years, living mainly in South Africa where he met Ria and for shorter periods in Germany and Greece.

He worked in the financial services and management consultancy areas for many years before he and his wife set up their own business consultancy, Fidential Norwalk.

With clients all over Europe, the US, the UK and South Africa, Daly's lifestyle involved an enormous amount of travel - he took 250 flights in 2005 alone.

Having lived in Greece for two years, the Dalys decided to move back to Kells in Ireland so that their children, Mairead (now 16) and Eamonn (now 7), would know what it was like to grow up Irish.

However, they did not get the warm welcome they expected.

"We found settling into Ireland one of the most difficult things we had ever done," he says.

"It is my home country but so much has changed in the past 20 years. We found it easier settling into a completely foreign country like Greece where we knew nobody and spoke a different language.

"The Irish are peculiar. If you have been abroad and been successful in any way, there is a certain begrudgery, you are seen as coming back with fancy ideas."

In September, Daly was given the news that his suspected stomach ulcer was, in fact, malignant but operable.

However, when surgeons opened him up they discovered that he had a rare form of cancer called Signet Ring cancer (because it is the shape of a signet ring under microscope).

Overnight Daly went from a healthy long-distance marathon runner and mountain climber to being terminally ill and given six months to live.

A couple of days after his diagnosis, while still hooked up to tubes in his hospital bed, he and Ria decided to set up a non-profit organisation called the Tamhnach Foundation, meaning oasis, to provide an integrated support centre for busy working people who are struggling to cope with a "life challenge", whether mental or physical.

"I had been thinking for a few years about the need to look after people who are healthy but do not realise that their lives are a mess through stress and not taking care of relationships or spending enough time with family," he says.

"As a guy who was hitting 10 countries in one week, I am the first to admit that my own life was seriously out of balance."

The couple have not yet identified a site for the Tamhnach centre, which will be based on the lines of a small hotel. It is possible that it will be west of the Shannon or in Connemara where the Daly family spend a lot of time.

The couple raised €150,000 towards the foundation's launch at a blacktie dinner in Meath in November and donations are continuing to stream in.

At the moment, Ria is running the business while Daly undergoes vast quantities of chemotherapy with its many unpleasant side effects.

He is prepared to use the "heavy guns" to beat his illness and is open to all forms of alternative healing as well as conventional medicine, including faith healing.

As well as his wife, he looks to examples like Lance Armstrong who not only beat terminal cancer but went on to win the Tour de France seven times.

If you wish to donate to The Tamhnach Foundation, cheques can be sent to: The Tamhnach Foundation, Suite 134, 103 - 105 Lower Rathmines Road Dublin 6.

Bank transfers can be made to the Bank of Ireland, Kells, Co Meath. Sort code: 90-34-45. Account Number: 54455318.