Team Caoimhe: Help Her Beat Aggressive Childhood Cancer

My name is Barry Cotter, and I’m proud to be the business partner of Matt Keenan, who is the founder of The Anxious Lad and Bray Community Lifeline .

On Monday, July 14th 2025, Matt’s 10-year-old daughter Caoimhe was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive and rare form of childhood cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS).

Caoimhe is a bright, brave, and beautiful girl with a heart full of life. She lives in Bray with her mum Martina, dad Matt, her older sister Cara, and big brother Jonathan. A close-knit family now facing the unimaginable that is childhood cancer.

What is Rhabdomyosarcoma?

Rhabdomyosarcoma (pronounced: RAB-doh MY-oh sar-KOH-muh) is a rare and fast-growing cancer that forms in muscle tissue. It affects approximately 4.5 in every 1,000,000 children under the age of 10. In Caoimhe’s case, the tumour was found in the roof of her mouth, but it had already grown so aggressively that it pushed through the bone and into the space around her brain. Scans also revealed that it had spread to her lungs.

That’s how urgent and serious this is: chemotherapy started just five days after diagnosis, on the Saturday - with no time to waste.

She is currently in Crumlin hospital, receiving an exceptionally strong combination of chemotherapy drugs, a treatment so intense that doctors changed the original plan. Instead of a standard 21-day cycle (three days of chemo followed by 18 days off), Caoimhe is now being given chemo daily over her first weekend, followed by weekly treatments for at least the next seven weeks. This approach reflects just how urgently her doctors are trying to slow the cancer down.

Why We’re Raising Funds

You might know Matt and Martina through their mental health work in Bray. After battling depression and suicidal thoughts himself, Matt turned his pain into purpose by launching The Anxious Lad and later Bray Community Lifeline: a world-first, on-call volunteer service that dispatches trained suicide first-aiders to people in crisis in minutes.

There are people alive today because of Matt, Martina and their work. One of those life-saving calls even came in on Caoimhe’s 10th birthday. Matt dropped everything, as he always does, to help someone in need because that’s who he is. He was awarded the 2024 Bray Person Of The Year award for the lives he has saved.

Martina is heavily involved in Bray Area Rough Sleepers Support (BARSS). The Keenan family have given up so much of their time, resources and love to help the community.

Now, it’s our turn to return that support.

This fundraiser is about giving the Keenan family room to breathe. To allow Martina and Matt to stop worrying about bills, groceries, or mortgages and focus entirely on Caoimhe’s care, recovery, and comfort during this brutal fight ahead.

Every Donation Counts

Your support will go directly to the Keenans so they can:

If you can give, please do. If you can share, please do. And if you can hold this family in your thoughts, that matters too.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for helping Team Caoimhe.