This year marks a significant milestone for the Irish Heart Foundation – 60 years of leading the fight against cardiovascular disease in Ireland.

For six decades, we have innovated in health promotion and heart disease and stroke prevention, worked to build a nation of lifesavers through CPR training, campaigned and advocated for patients, and supported anyone affected by stroke, heart disease and other cardiac conditions including most recently thrombosis.

While we take an opportunity to acknowledge this milestone, our history, achievements and the wonderful leaders and personalities who shaped the organisation’s legacy to date, we also reaffirm our commitment to, and ambition for, a future where no hearts are broken by preventable heart disease, stroke and thrombosis.

The Irish Heart Foundation was founded in 1966 – during a decade of massive social change and transition in Ireland. The Irish healthcare system was also in flux, transitioning from coping with mass infectious diseases like TB and polio to a new focus managing chronic illnesses like cancer and heart disease. At the time, Ireland was experiencing a rising mortality rate from heart disease with the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in the male population among the highest in any developed country.

Against this backdrop, renowned Irish cardiologist Professor Risteard Mulcahy attended a meeting of the British Cardiac Society and immediately saw the value of having such an independent, non-governmental organisation in Ireland. Professor Mulcahy disagreed with the prevailing view of the time that heart disease was treatable rather than preventable and believed that the Irish population’s limited awareness of cardiovascular risk meant that there was an urgent need for public health education on preventable heart conditions.

Driven by this visionary belief, he assembled an initial 10-member board made up of medical practitioners and other professionals from a diversity of sectors. And so, the Irish Heart Foundation was established with the same passion, mission and ambition that we still possess today – to reduce premature death and disability from cardiovascular disease.

In practical terms, this mission meant bridging the gap between cardiac clinicians and hospital care and the realities of life in local communities. The early days of the Foundation saw the organisation spearheading public health education campaigns around awareness and prevention, supporting patients and families affected by heart disease and stroke and working to influence public health policy.

Over the decades, the Irish Heart Foundation has continued to play a leading role in transforming heart health across Ireland including the following landmark moments;

• spearheading awareness and policy change campaigns to promote smoking cessation, the Irish Heart Foundation was a driving force behind the successful implementation of the workplace smoking ban in Ireland in 2004 and most recently, the Public Health (Tobacco) (Amendment) Act 2024, which will increase the legal age of all tobacco products from 18 to 21 in 2028 and thereby further strengthen tobacco control in Ireland
• delivering CPR education and training, empowering thousands of young people and local communities through free programs such as CPR 4 Schools and ‘Hands for Life’ with an estimated 70,000 people around Ireland trained in CPR to date
• successfully lobbying for the delivery of Ireland’s first dedicated national stroke strategy in 2022
• introducing a variety of free patient support services such as the Nurse Support Line, providing confidential advice and guidance on heart health and stroke recovery, the Heart Connect Service, an information service exclusively for heart failure patients and the Young Stroke Survivor Network
• developing and promoting the FAST campaign nationwide to help people recognise the signs of a stroke
• rolling out Mobile Health Units and health checks across the country, delivering 10,000 free health checks in 2025

These public health innovations have transformed and improved the cardiovascular health of an entire population in the last six decades, saving lives and preventing or reducing disability., However, our fight to protect the cardiovascular health of everyone in this country continues and is as important today as it was in 1966.

Health challenges are changing and new risk factors emerging, contributing to a current generational emergency in cardiovascular health in Ireland. The tragic reality is that around 16 people will have a heart attack today and 20 others will have a stroke. What many people don’t know is that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading killer in both men and women, killing 6 times as many women as breast cancer does. But what many people also don’t know is that there is hope, 80% of early heart disease and stroke cases are preventable.

For this reason, the stark reality is that there are many more lives to be saved. And so, the passion, mission and ambition that instigated the creation of the Irish Heart Foundation remains – to transform cardiovascular health in Ireland – and to ensure a future where no hearts are broken by preventable heart disease, stroke and thrombosis.

Finally, our work over the last 60 years has only been made possible, and will continue to only be made possible by, the support of our partners and the generosity of the public. As we take a moment of reflection for our 60-year milestone as a charity, we also take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support.

Together we have made extraordinary progress and together we will continue to protect and improve the nation’s heart health for generations to come.