The Irish woman who brought a combination of wellie racing and St Patrick's Day celebrations to the Swiss Alps was remembered this weekend.
Family and friends of Rosaleen Crotty Ehinger returned to Moos in Switzerland yesterday for a wellie race in her honour.
Ms Crotty Ehinger organised a St Patrick's Day wellie race in the area against the backdrop of the Alps almost every year since 2015.
She died on the 10 February this year in Allensbach in Germany, where she had lived for the last 17 years and was buried in her native Co Kilkenny on 21 February.
Her inspiration for organising wellie boot races, first in Germany and later in Switzerland, came from the annual New Year's Day wellie race that began 45 years ago as a fundraiser in Castlecomer in her native county.
She first tried to introduce the concept in Allensbach in Germany when she moved there in 2008 after taking part in a number of offshoot fundraising wellie races in New York, where she lived in the early 2000s.
"The wellie race did not take off easily here," her husband Herbert Ehinger said, adding "the Germans would rather run without wellies".
But Ms Crotty Ehinger was undeterred and decided to bring the idea to neighbouring Switzerland in 2015.
"She combined it with St Patrick's Day, a great move," Mr Ehinger said.
"The Swiss loved the fun factor and Rosaleen went every year to organise it," he said.
"She simply loved bring people together to have fun," he added.
Even during the pandemic, she kept up the wellie racing by doing a virtual walk during lockdown in Co Kilkenny.
Around two years ago, Ms Crotty Ehinger was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus.
She was unable to travel to Switzerland last year for the St Patrick's Day race, so instead some of the regular wellie racers travelled to her home in Germany.
Ms Crotty Ehinger's family is also organising another commemorative wellie race in her memory in Allenback in Germany on 22 March.
