A History of Changing Lives

The Beginning

From our humble beginnings in 1976, Irish Guide Dogs has proudly changed the lives of thousands of vision impaired Irish people to give them back their independence. And, since 2005, we expanded our services to train Assistance Dogs to enhance the lives of children with autism and their families.

The birth of our organisation was the result of an accident in which one of our founders and Life President, Jim Dennehy, lost his sight. When this accident occurred, Jim was very active, running a successful garage and car sales business at Dennehy’s Cross, Cork. Married to Pat with two young children, Jim was heavily involved in his local community on the Model Farm Road and a member of the very successful Highfield Rugby team of the late 1960s.

Losing his sight was a huge blow to Jim. However, this was only the beginning of several setbacks to befall him. He quickly found out that Ireland of 1968 was not an open and hospitable place for people with disabilities, especially for a vision-impaired person. The government of the time, led by Jack Lynch with Sean Flanagan as Minister for Health, did not see the need to publicly fund the rehabilitation of those who suffered from sight loss. This attitude seemed to be the norm also in the Irish medical system of the time. Jim’s ophthalmologist told him he could look forward to being confined to his home and that he would be great company for his wife, Pat. In other words, hidden away.

This was the catalyst that the very determined businessman needed. However, before he could change a whole medical and political system, and the mindset he had to address his own situation. Determined not to become an invisible person in society, he pursued a path to increase his own mobility and, by extension, his own independence. He applied to a mobility rehabilitation centre in Torquay, England.

Through the expert care and instruction there, Jim learned how to use a long white cane, increasing his mobility and independence. While training with other visually impaired people, Jim was taken on a tour of the guide dog training centre in nearby Exeter. He was immediately impressed and signed up to apply for inclusion in the training programme.

In 1970, he was accepted into that training programme and was matched with his first guide dog. He could not believe that a dog could give him even more independence than his cane. This drove Jim to make a promise that such a facility should be created at home in Ireland for blind and visually impaired people.

In Exeter, Jim met John Weeks, who was involved with the British Guide Dogs. Following some long discussions, they decided that in order to establish a feasible training facility in Ireland, there would have to be demand from at least fifty potential clients. At that point, the demand was unknown, as the health authorities in Ireland did not recognise the mobility needs of vision-impaired people, and no data was available to ascertain the number of blind and visually impaired people requiring assistance.

On his return home, Jim continued to pursue his dream of a guide dog facility in Ireland.

Through John, Jim was introduced to Mary Dunlop, who was involved in training dogs in Cork. She had been widowed in 1967, and was involved in fundraising for the British Guide Dogs Association in Ireland.

Indeed, by the early 1970s, Mary was also on the Cork County Executive of the National Council for the Blind in Ireland, the national charitable organisation established in 1931, that offered support to people with eyesight problems. Mary had a retired German Sheppard Guide Dog, Jan, which she used to raise money at dog shows across the country. This money was used to allow blind and visually impaired people to travel to Exeter to potentially train to become a guide dog owner with the Guide Dog Association.

The Birth of an Movement

On Jim’s return, he teamed up with Mary to look at the possibility of setting up a training facility in Ireland. They organised a meeting with the Department of Health, which dismissed outright the need for such a facility in Ireland. Their argument being that there were very few availing of the opportunity of going to England to train with a Guide Dog. In their opinion, there was not sufficient demand to warrant the use of scarce resources.

Undeterred by this rebuke, they set about proving the government wrong. They decided, at an early stage, that they needed to raise awareness among the public at large of the need for such a facility. However, before they could embark on this, they needed to establish the level of support among the sight-impaired community for such a venture.

They set about this task by organising public meetings in Galway, Wexford, Dublin and Cork during 1975, inviting visually impaired people and the general public to attend. Joe Bollard, a sight-impaired musician and DJ, and Jim Sherwin, a sports presenter with RTE, chaired the meetings in Cork and Dublin. An encouraging sixty-five people attended the Cork meeting. This was followed by a meeting held in the Mansion House, Dublin, with over seventy people in attendance. Again, chaired by Jim Sherwin, a representative of the Department of Health also attended, as did John Weeks from the Guide Dog Association of England. At the conclusion of this meeting, a vote was taken on a motion to establish a guide dog school and training facility in Ireland. The vote was overwhelmingly in favour; sixty-eight in favour, two opposed, including the Department of Health representative.

New National Headquarters

As the decision became public, it seems to have caught the imagination of the general population, with offers of support flooding in from volunteers all over the country. This led to the formation of the Irish Guide Dog Association. It was incorporated in the register of Irish Charities on 23rd June, 1976.

They set up their first training facility in Drumcondra, Dublin City, in 1977 on the National Council for the Blind, Ireland campus. However, facilities in this inner city location were not conducive to the training or breeding of dogs. The then board, while disappointed with the Dublin facility, decided to actively seek a more suitable location. In 1979, they entered negotiations with John Henchy, who owned Hill Farm on the Model Farm Road near the village of Ballincollig and adjacent to Cork City. In order for the charity to fulfil its mandate, the training of guide dogs and the provision of facilities for potential clients, a large site was required. Hill Farm seemed to tick all the boxes.

The board, led by their first Chair Mary Dunlop and Jim Dennehy, entered negotiations to purchase the house, outbuildings and three and a half acres of of land. The vendor was agreeable but was initially looking for £13,000 Irish Punts.

Following a lengthy negotiation period, the two parties finally agreed in 1980 to a fee of £8,000 Irish punts, which included all that the Guide Dogs were looking for. They now had a headquarters with the potential to expand and enhance their services to their clients and staff.

Also, at this time, the Guide Dogs acquired the services of Nigel Catherson from the Guide Dog Association of England. He joined as a dog trainer and oversaw the training of the first two Irish Guide Dogs in 1980. These dogs, arrived from England and were trained in five months at a cost of £2,500 punts. To prepare the new site for the training and housing of dogs, the initial work in their new headquarters was concentrated on the provision of facilities and housing for the dogs. This meant that the administration and office had to initially be located at a suburban house in Muskerry Estate in the nearby quickly expanding dormitory town of Ballincollig.

Funding of the Dream

In the early 1980s, the charity was almost entirely dependent on voluntary donations from the public. Moves were then made to seek exchequer funding from the Department of Health. These initial attempts were difficult as the government of the day was reluctant to fund another charity. However, in the early 1980s, they were able to secure two grants from the Southern Health Board. The effect of this was twofold. Firstly, putting the charity on the funding ladder, and secondly giving the charity official recognition. This was important as it meant the organisation could now start to engage in some forward planning to expand its services to an ever-growing cliental. In those early days it was estimated that up to 300 people would use the services of the Irish Guide Dogs.

The Board then engaged in long-term planning to develop proper state-of-the-art administration, training and boarding facilities for staff, clients and dogs. The plan was to have the whole organisation operating out of its Model Farm Road site. The expansion of HSE section 39 grants enabled the construction of the administration block which was officially opened on the 5th October 2001, by the then Minister for Health, Micheál Martin TD.

The second phase of the development of the present campus commenced in 2008. The Minister for Health at the time, Mary Harney TD, approved a grant of €855,000 from the government's dormant funds account. This meant that the client accommodation, the puppy centre and the refurbishment of the kennel facilities could all begin. This added hugely to the development of state-of-the-art facilities on site. Nine ensuite bedrooms with a kitchen and recreation facilities were created for clients who were training with their new dogs. The kennels had underfloor heating with raised beds for the dogs and a veterinary clinic to cater for any medical needs the dogs may have, along with a dedicated unit for newborn and young puppies.

This work was completed in 2011 and was officially opened by the then Taoiseach Enda Kenny TD on 13th June 2011. This development has had a major transformative effect on the consolidation and development of our work, giving the scope to further enhance developments in dog training, while also giving our clients proper facilities when they are initially being introduced and trained with their Guide/Assistance Dog. The development of the National Headquarters and Training Centre gave us the scope to further enhance the provision of services to our clients.

The Services Provided

In 1988 we added our Orientation and Mobility Programme to our offering. This trained vision impaired clients in the use of the long white cane, helping to enhance independence.

In 1999, this programme was expanded with the introduction of our Child Mobility Programme; an initiative funded by the Department of Education supporting vision impaired primary and secondary children and young adults to participate, on an equal footing, in study, home and leisure activities safely while facilitating their independence. The one downside of this programme is that we can only offer the service to children in the Munster area, for operational reasons.

By 2004, with the various building developments, we were able to add new programmes to help vision impaired people to live full and independent lives. Our Independent Living Programme was designed as a five-day residential course to teach people to navigate daily household tasks that are most relevant to them. It has developed as a very useful additional skill set for vision-impaired, new third level students as they leave home for an independent college life.

In 2005, we were once more at the cutting edge when it came to providing support to people with disabilities by introducing our Assistance Dog Programme for children with autism. This service was first introduced in 1999 in Canada by the National Service Dogs Organisation. They aimed to provide safety and companionship for children with autism. Their first partnership was in 1997, with a black Labrador named ‘Shade’. We were the first organisation in Europe to launch an Assistance Dog Programme to support families and children with autism. This was a new aspect to our services and we did not enter this programme without ensuring a fully researched professional service would be provided to benefit our new family clients. We re-trained our trainers to take into account the special needs of these new clients, along with providing suitable sensory facilities to help assess the needs of the child and successfully match them with an assistance dog.

Initially, we were inundated with applications for the programme and soon had to shut down applications as demand far outweighed the supply of dogs. The service has now become more streamlined, and since 2013, we have been able to open an application window for potential clients, the most recent being in March 2026, when over 100 applications were received.

In 2026, we began working with the Tindall Institute in University College Cork to examine new scientific approaches to welfare and training, further enhancing our offering to our clients.

On to the Next Fifty

Of course, we could not have survived our early years or, for that matter, thrived to the present day had it not been for the dedicated volunteers and support staff, who supplement and help the full-time staff.

As was outlined earlier, it has been and is a constant struggle to get adequate State funding to run such a vital service. It is estimated that it costs €5.5 million annually to fund the various programmes that have been outlined in this short history. The State gives us €1.5 million per year through various schemes from the HSE, Department of Health and Department of Education.

At the moment, this €4 million gap is filled by three main voluntary sources; a dedicated group of corporate volunteers, legacy donations and donations by the general public through the tireless fundraising work of community volunteers throughout the length and breadth of Ireland in over forty branches. These efforts are supported by some very high-profile ambassadors, who very generously give of their time to help spread our message, none more so than Roy Keane, who since 2003, has been the public face of the charity.

Who knows where the next fifty years will take us with ongoing advances in technology and science? However, no artificial technology can ever replace the love, loyalty and companionship of a guide, assistance or community dog.

To lose your sight at any age

Such bad luck, such misfortune

Feeling your life has come to an end

When all you need is a loyal friend

Ann Gilmour (Poet)