Irish community organizes sunrise walk to promote mental well-being

People participate in the first Solas walk in Seoul, May 18, 2024. Courtesy of Irish Association of Korea

By Jon Dunbar

• Published May 12, 2025 6:30 AM KST
• Updated May 13, 2025 12:46 PM KST

The Irish Association of Korea (IAK) is organizing Solas, a community walking event to promote well-being and raise funds for mental health services.

A 5-kilometer walk is set to take place simultaneously in three regions of Korea —Seoul, Busan and Jeju Island — beginning at 4 a.m. on May 31 and continuing until approximately 7 a.m. Participants will meet in the darkness and experience the sunrise together as they walk.

"It's beautiful going along the Han River at that time," said Gordon Winthrop, the main organizer and husband of Irish Ambassador Michelle Winthrop.

"It's about emphasising that in the darkness there is light, there is always hope. By having that walk starting in the dark and as you continue your 5K walk and get to the end, it's got bright, the sun is up and there's hope."

He added that this is not a competitive race.

"It's not a run, it's not a sprint, it's not a race," he said. "Everybody's just walking at their own pace for the 5K route. It gives people a chance to meet, to mingle, to talk. With that, what we're trying to emphasize is the need to communicate. If you've got an issue, express that, talk to someone. Don't bottle stuff up, particularly us men. We're really bad at that and trying to change that mentality in all of us. If you've got problems, seek help, talk to someone."

Living in a foreign country can be tough on one's mental health, especially due to the lack of personalized support networks.

"Back home in Ireland, that may be much easier because you have your family, you have your friendship networks, you know the lay of the land," he said. "When you're here, particularly when we're talking about the Irish community here, living and working here, being so far from home, they may not have those networks. So what we're trying to do is encourage those people that might not come so often to come, but also to build their social networks as well, that gives them someone that they can talk to in the future if they're finding it hard."

Solas has only been running since last year, but prior to the pandemic, there was a similar set of events called Darkness into Light by Pieta House (now just Pieta), an Irish charity.

When planning began last year, the members decided to take the event in a new direction, one more independent and locally focused.

"We wanted to try and raise funds locally for something that we thought would be beneficial in-country, rather than shipping the money back to Ireland," Winthrop said.

Last year, for the inaugural Solas event, Winthrop said there were about 50 participants. They raised money for Helplink.ie, an Ireland-based counseling services provider that offers services for Irish nationals living abroad.

For this year, the main recipient of the event's fundraising is the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God, a Catholic order providing compassionate care in 55 countries. The order has been active in Korea since 1958, when it established a clinic in Gwangju. It has since expanded significantly, and now has three facilities in Seoul as well.

"They provide really, really excellent services," Winthrop said.

This includes counseling for families of persons with physical or learning disabilities, support to those suffering substance addiction or mental health issues, grief counselling for those who have experienced the suicide of someone close to them and individual counseling and support programs for students experiencing stress or psychological problems.

Winthrop added that it was tough finding a suitable organization to support, especially with the strong taboo against discussions of suicide in Korea.

"Even if you're looking to do something positive around it, it's such a stigma," Winthrop said. "For Koreans, what we're trying to emphasize is that there is a stigma here. We understand it's a massive problem. It's a massive problem in Ireland as well. But as a nation, we're dealing with it. As a nation here, they're not. It's getting brushed under the carpet, and it's a real, real problem."

He hopes more Koreans, as well as other foreign residents, will join the walk.

"So what we're trying to do, just bit by bit, is just encourage more Koreans to come along to these events, and just feel comfortable there and understand the premise of what we're trying to do," he said. "And that idea of talking, it might sound simple, but it's a great medicine."

The first Solas walk last year involved mostly Irish participants, but just like how the IAK's annual St. Patrick's Day festival has evolved into a very multicultural event, Withrop hopes to see the walking event grow more diverse.

He pointed out that the IAK organizers are predominantly Irish, although there is some diversity, including one Korean member who lived in Dublin for a few years.

"It needs to have people from different nationalities, it needs to have a lot of Koreans, because the Irish might well move on — we're not always here. So there needs to be an institutional memory running through everything that the IAK does," Winthrop said. "So hopefully this year it will be a little more multicultural."

The Seoul walk starts from Yeouinaru Station on Seoul Metro Line 5, while the Jeju course begins at Global Education City and the Busan event starts at Starlight Park in Yongho-dong. There are also various plans in the works to offer a breakfast at the end.

Winthrop encourages registering as early as possible to receive a green volunteer shirt. Visit irishassociationofkorea.kr/solas for more information and to register.