BEGINNING EARLY THIS morning, an estimated 150,000 people in Ireland and around the world will walk as the sun rises for the annual Darkness Into Light event.

From Athlone to Ottawa, from Brisbane to Hong Kong, and from Quebec to the Phoenix Park participants will run or walk for the flagship awareness event for Pieta House.

Now in its ninth year, Darkness Into Light has become synonymous with suicide awareness and prevention.

The funds raised each year go towards supporting Pieta House’s counselling services to those in suicidal crisis, people who engage in self-harm and those bereaved by suicide.

From humble beginnings with 400 people in the Phoenix Park in 2009, Darkness Into Light has grown into a global movement.

Pieta House founder and CEO Senator Joan Freeman told TheJournal.ie that she liked the idea of organising a night-time or early morning event. “The fact that it was taking place at night highlighted the issue of suicide,” she said.

Freeman believes the event caught people’s imaginations as it “gave people permission to talk about [suicide]“.

Darkness Into Light is taking in over 100 towns and cities the length and breadth of the country this morning.

The main event will again take place in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, with walkers set to begin at 4.15am.

If you’re taking part, please send your photos to pictures@thejournal.ie. 

If you need to talk, contact:

• Pieta House 1800 247 247 or email mary@pieta.ie (suicide, self-harm)
• Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
• Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
• Teen-Line Ireland 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 19)
• Childline 1800 66 66 66 (for under 18s)

Read: ‘Darkness Into Light allows us to talk about the wound left by suicide’

Read: ‘I was going to end my life or I was going to get better. That was the choice I had’